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THE GREAT FRENCH WRITERS 



THIERS 



Cl&e (3tmt JTrencI) mtittvs. 



MADAME DE SfiVIGNfi . . By Gaston Boissier. 

GEORGE SAND By E. Caro. 

MONTESQUIEU By Albert Sorel. 

VICTOR COUSIN By Jules Simon. 

TURCOT By L6on Say. 

THIERS By Paul de Remusat. 

OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION. 



Uniforin in style. Price, $i.oo a vohime. 



(Zni)e (3tmt Jfrenrtj Wtittts ^ 



THIERS 



BY 



PAUL DE REMUSAT 



TRANSLATED BY 



MELVILLE B. ANDERSON 

TRANSLATOR OF HUGO's " SHAKESPEARE " 



> 



/3/ 





CHICAGO 

A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 
1889 



1}' 



5 it i 



Copyright 

By a. C. McClurg and Co, 

A.D. i8Sq 



THE UB&Aftr 
OF COmotiBBS 

WASHINGTOW 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Translator's Note 7 

Introduction 9 

Chapter 

I. The Restoration 13 

II. The July Government. 47 

III. The Republic of 1848 99 

IV. The Empire (1851-1863) 124 

V. The Empire (i 863-1 870) 142 

VI. The War 177 

VII. The Third Republic 200 

VIII. Retirement and Death 223 

Index . . .- 235 



TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. 



As this volume is the longest of the series, the 
American publishers have urged the translator to study 
precision, and to omit redundancies, repetitions, and 
slight particulars likely to be of little interest to Ameri- 
can readers. Any one who takes pains to compare 
this version with the original will therefore discover 
that phrases and sentences are here and there omitted 
or greatly abbreviated. These excisions have, how- 
ever, not been wantonly made ; on the contrary, the 
translator is able to give a good reason for every one 
of them, and believes the book to be rather improved 
than impaired by them. 



THIERS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

TF the art of writing consisted merely in 
clothing an ingenious thought in correct 
and elegant phrases, or in running down a new 
image, a happily chosen metaphor, there would 
be few great writers, and it would be some- 
thing of a paradox to place M. Thiers in their 
select company. Critics would point out that 
the literary style of this statesman is not always 
perfectly correct, — that it sometimes lacks 
elegance or rapidity or picturesqueness. Facts 
and things, rather than words, stir his imag- 
ination, which is not reflected in his style. 
Strewn negligently here and there are lumber- 
ing sentences, colorless expressions, common- 
places of diction and thought. 

Luckily, however, the qualities of the great 
writer are of an order very much above any- 
thing that can be taught in books of rhetoric. 
The processes of the art of writing are as vari- 



lo Introduction. 

ous as the minds of which that art is the most 
splendid manifestation ; and if some of the 
quahties that make the Racines and the Boi- 
leaus are lacking to the historian of the Revo- 
lution and of the Empire, as they were lacking 
to Saint-Simon, the merits which characterize 
him are none the less precious. Without ob- 
vious search after effect, without apparent art, 
he develops with breadth and clearness a vast 
narrative which he really controls as a master, 
while it seems to hurry him away as it hurries 
away his reader. The profusion of detail does 
not slacken the general movement, and this 
majestic river — this noble Loire which rolls so 
broad a stream — sweeps along like a torrent. 
Under a somewhat cold coloring, the concealed 
passion of the author for his subject animates 
the entire work. And what a work ! Ten 
volumes on the history of the Revolution, 
and twenty on the Consulate and the Empire ! 
This last work is especially pervaded with that 
hidden warmth, and may be considered as the 
most magnificent monument of contemporary 
literature. Deservedly has the French Acad- 
emy crowned this work with its sanction. Per- 
haps no writer's vigor was ever so sustained 
throughout a quarter of a century; indeed, 
his last books surpass the first in energy, inter- 
est, and inspiration. Is not all this a compen- 



Introduction. 1 1 

sation for some redundancies, for some trite 
moral reflections, for some deficiency in that 
rhetorical element of which Tacitus has too 
much? 

And the speeches ! Because an opinion has 
been pronounced in public instead of being 
written or dictated in solitude, is it any the less 
a literary work? Since M. Thiers' speeches, 
in cold type, are models of clearness and of 
excellent arrangement; since in reading them 
we are still fascinated as when we heard them 
issue, in Southern accent, from those thin, ex- 
pressive lips ; since the fifteen volumes pub- 
lished under the competent editorship of M. 
Calmon^ form a course of judicious politics, 
of well-balanced finance, of free and wise 
government; and since this course is useful to 
succeeding generations, — is it the less just to 
point out their merits and to write their his- 
tory, even their literary history? 

The life of the man of letters is intimately 
associated with the genesis of his works, and 
one of the superiorities of the modern critical 
method consists in not separating the man 
from his works. First Voltaire, afterward 
Villemain and Sainte-Beuve, gave us models 
of this kind of criticism. Here its necessity 

1 Discours parlementaires de M. Thiers, publics par M. 
Calmon. 15 vols. 8™. Paris, C. Levy, 1879-1S83. 



1 2 Introduction. 

is still more evident, for all the writings of 
M, Thiers are at the same time actions ; he 
not only related history, he made it We 
must, however, limit ourselves and resist the 
pleasure, somewhat mingled with pain, of re- 
lating the whole history of France for sixty 
years. Although we are dealing with an ora- 
tor, it is no oratorical device to say that in 
these pages details will be given only in so far 
as they directly concern his person or his just 
claim to renown. Space is wanting to go be- 
yond this and to break down the very thin 
partition which divides the history of such 
a man from the history of his country. 



CHAPTER L 

THE RESTORATION. 

TT was in 1823 that the name "Thiers" first 
-^ caught the pubHc eye ; at least, it was 
then for the first time printed on the cover of 
a book. The title was " The Pyrenees," ^ and 
although several passages have been adopted 
into the guide-books as the best descriptions 
of the vale of Argeles and of the plain of 
Tarbes, the work was not written for tourists. 
This narrative of a journey made in the autumn 
of 1822 is essentially a political pamphlet 
against the Spanish War, — a war not yet 
begun, but for which the active preparations 
were the signal for a great outburst of Ab- 
solutist passions and claims. It was not until 
the month of March, 1823, that the Duke of 
Angouleme set out; but there had already 
been a great discussion in the Chambers, and 
a ministry had fallen. The time was therefore 

1 Les Pyrenees et le midi de la France pendant les mois de 
novembre et de decembre, 1822. Par A. Thiers, 8™, Paris, 
chez Ponthieu, 1823. This work was reprinted in 1S74. 



14 Thiers. 

favorable for a summary of the impressions 
which the sight of the menaced regions might 
make upon an enhghtened mind. The French 
court and the Chambers had determined to 
re-enthrone King Ferdinand VIL, who had 
been dismissed by his subjects. This was a 
strange undertaking at a time when consti- 
tutional principles were beginning to prevail 
again, — especially strange on the part of a 
people which had more than once recognized 
that a nation belongs to itself alone. It is true 
that the Emigrants were loath to admit this 
right, and that the House of Bourbon, rein- 
stated by foreign power, saw in it an indirect 
condemnation of their hopes and of their pro- 
ceedings for thirty years back. The Restora- 
tion was itself a great example of intervention, 
but its first care should have been to make 
men forget this. Such a care would have 
been in harmony with justice, morality, reason, 
and good policy, — things which, whatever 
people may say, are very often found in agree- 
ment. It was necessary, under the Charter, to 
recognize in nations the right of enjoying polit- 
ical liberty, and of using force in certain cases 
in the service of this right. Had the question 
been merely to support a threatened king upon 
his throne, the policy might have been more 
defensible. But a French army was being sent 



The Restoration. 15 

into Spain to give back to a dethroned king 
the absolute sovereignty of which he had been 
deprived by his subjects. Every hberal-minded 
man shuddered at this; and stirring debates 
took place in the two Chambers. 

The occasion was excellent for entering the 
field of political controversy. But M. Thiers 
attacked the projected war not as a political 
theorist; much rather he ridiculed the "sol- 
diers of the faith " with graceful wit and easy 
banter. This good-nature is a great quality 
in a politician ; M. Thiers retained it through- 
out all the storms of his life, and to the very* 
last owed to it parliamentary and popular suc- 
cesses. Fifty years later he was to say on a 
certain solemn occasion, " We should take 
everything seriously, nothing tragically." Such 
cheerfulness is one of the forms of courage, 
and is perhaps, together with intelligence, the 
most marked trait of his first book. A little 
searching discloses other qualities that are also 
to reappear later, — a style which, if a trifle 
lumbering, is easy and natural, and which 
seems the proper language of good sense ; an 
interest in everything, — art, science, the indus- 
tries, whose processes he describes in detail. 
There is a page, for example, on the manu- 
facture of soda at Marseilles, that seems a kind 
of prophecy of those copious explanations 



1 6 Thiers. 

concerning tissues, metals, and raw materials, 
which have given so much instruction to our 
contemporaries. One would be tempted to 
copy entire pages but for the fact that in the 
course of this study the opportunity will fre- 
quently present itself of citing the opinions of 
M. Thiers in his own words, of transcribing 
speeches characterized by a happy union of 
practice and theory, pervaded with the noblest 
sentiments, and strewn with brilliant, almost 
poetical, descriptions. It was not in vain that 
he was a child of the South ; in his veins 
•flowed some drops of the blood of Andre 
Chenier. 

This was not the first writing of the young 
graduate of the Marseilles Lyceum. Louis 
Adolphe Thiers was born at Marseilles, April 
15, 1797, and after a brilliant career at college 
went to Aix, where he pursued the study of 
the law. Scarcely had he, in 1820, attained 
the degree of hcentiate, when he competed for 
a prize offered by the Academy of Aix. His 
discourse, a eulogy of Vauvenargues, was pro- 
nounced the best. But provincial academies 
were then sometimes tainted by the coterie 
spirit, and the Academy of Aix retained some 
affection for the Old Regime. M. Thiers 
could not have lived, young, active, impetuous, 
in the circles, and perhaps too in the cafey, 



The Restoration. 17 

of a little city that plumed itself upon being a 
centre of letters and wit, without becoming 
known and liked, nor without giving some 
promise of talent. He was looked upon as one 
of the Liberal leaders in a society which was 
still stirred by the passions of 18 15. A mem- 
ber of the Academy, M. d'Arlatan de Lauris, 
an enlightened magistrate, having through ex- 
cess of kindness betrayed the incognito, the 
Academy refused, for want of sufficiently dis- 
tinguished contestants, to confer the prize ; 
and the competition was postponed until the 
following year. A year later M. Thiers sent 
back the first discourse without conceahng his 
name, and composed a second, which was sent 
indirectly from Paris and was without signature. 
The triumphant Academy awarded the prize 
to the second, while it put off the former and 
better of the two with an accessit. " The Con- 
stitutionnel " afterward gave an extract from it, 
which we perhaps do wrong not to transcribe. 
But these youthful works of eminent men are 
a little deceptive, so wholly do we find their 
authors in them. One would prefer to believe 
that study, experience, life, create qualities, or 
at least so develop as to transform them. The 
course of existence, however, appears merely 
to bring confidence, opportunities for the dis- 
play of talent, sureness of expression ; and it is 



1 8 Thiers. 

not certain that M. Thiers has at any time 
spoken of the moraHsts with greater simphcity 
or grace. 

Without dwelHng upon this formative period, 
we should from this moment place beside M. 
Thiers his contemporary, M. Mignet. To the 
last day he loved with unalterable affection 
this devoted companion, — and this is rather 
a trait of his character than an incident of his 
biography. That mobile, active spirit which 
is to be agitated by so many great events, 
" whence so many passions and works shall 
bud and blossom," this man who is to know 
throughout half a century fortune and dis- 
grace, exile and power, public favor and pitiless 
unpopularity, will remain faithful to the noble 
friendships formed in childhood and youth. 
These he kept, as he kept unimpaired the most 
serious of the opinions which he embraced 
with equal warmth. In his life separations 
and ruptures were rare. He was certainly not 
incapable of severity toward men ; but one 
must have very deeply offended him in order 
to incur his ill-will. Not merely for his 
friends, — to whom he pardoned everything, 
permitted everything, — but for those whom 
he had once taken into favor, for those who 
exhibited attachment toward him for a single 
day, he had an inexhaustible fund of indul- 



The Restoration. 19 

gence. If he avenged himself for a betrayal 
or for unhandsome usage, it was only by 
some innocent epigram. A hundred examples 
might be cited ; here is one of the slightest : 
M. Berger (anglic^ Shepherd), an opposition 
deputy under the July monarchy, was one of 
his faithful ones. Throughout many years, 
Thiers had shown and proved his friendship 
for Berger. After the coup d'etat, when 
Thiers was in exile, Berger chose his time to 
go over pubHcly to the Empire. Not long 
thereafter the former deputy, without precisely 
returning to his old-time liberalism, asked a 
common friend to find out how his former 
patron felt, and whether it was still possible 
to be received into favor. " Tell him that I 
still call him my faithful shepherd," replied 
M. Thiers ; and all was forgotten. 

In M. Mignet, Thiers never had anything to 
forget or to pardon ; antiquity has left us no 
nobler example of friendship. The contrast 
was great between these two men, both in 
physical appearance and in their mental make- 
up. But besides that natural sympathy which 
the ablest psychologists can only affirm, not 
explain, they had those common aims and 
aversions which constitute, according to Cicero, 
the first condition of friendship, — eadein velle, 
eadem nolle. Between these two so different 



20 Thiers. 

beingfs the conformity of sentiment was and re- 
mained so absolute that as they entered upon 
Hfe each wrote a history of the French Rev- 
olution conceived in the spirit of the other; 
and the octogenarian survivor was able to 
correct with his own hand and to publish 
the last political writing of his friend, without 
provoking any criticism or arousing any sus- 
picion of a single alteration in the thought or 
intentions of the author. Pylades never did 
as much for Orestes. 

In 1820 or 1821, M. Thiers and M. Mignet, 
already inseparable, discovered simultaneously 
that they were not suited to the Bar, and de- 
cided to go up to Paris. They had, however, 
pleaded once, and in the same case; at least 
Thiers told the story without being disputed 
by his friend. They were to defend a man 
accused of arson and of murder, both crimes 
punishable with death. On the first head, after 
a plea by Thiers, the man was acquitted ; on 
the second, in spite of a defence presented by 
M. Mignet, he was condemned. He was par- 
doned however, because, said Thiers, it was 
proved that the judges were mistaken. Dis- 
turbed by the pleadings, they had believed 
him innocent where he was guilty, guilty where 
he was innocent. Seduction had triumphed 
over cold logic. 



The Restoration. 



21 



The account of the journey to the Pyrenees 
was merely a collection of articles first pub- 
lished in the " Constitutionnel," — a journal 
whose columns were opened to Thiers through 
the good offices of M. Manuel, his fellow-coun- 
tryman. At the same time he wrote the polit- 
ical bulletins for the " Tablettes Universelles," 
— a weekly review founded by M. Coste. His 
articles in the " Constitutionnel " were spirited 
but serious; those in the "Tablettes" were in an 
entirely different tone. Were the glory for him 
less slight, it might be mentioned that he in- 
vented that lighter journalism which has flour- 
ished so much latterly. He gave those details, 
at that time novel, of which the daily life of 
governments is made up, — all the little partic- 
ulars of the secret part of public affairs, of the 
interior movements of the ministerial council 
and of the diplomatic conferences. These arti- 
cles received added zest when it became known 
that the writer drew his information from the 
copious source which M. de Talleyrand, in his 
irritation, had opened ; for Talleyrand had liked 
Thiers from the first. The latter even went so 
far as to print an ironical article on the account 
of a journey to Brussels and Ghent which 
King Louis XVHI. had just published, and so 
wounded the vanity of the author, more sen- 
sitive than that of the king. What was more 



22 Thiers. 

delicate still, he was bold enough to invoke in 
his polemic — though without breach of pro- 
priety — the name of the reputed mistress of 
the king, Madame de Cayla, whose influence 
was then considerable. His dexterity was so 
great that it was difficult to prosecute him. 
Later on, we have seen Pr6vost-Paradol like- 
wise escape the clutches of a harsher and 
more formidable power than that of the Res- 
toration. Their fates were similar: Prevost- 
Paradol's paper was suppressed, and Coste's 
review was bought up by the Villele ministry. 

This measure was neither skilful nor effec- 
tive. A journal is not to be sold with its 
editors, like a plantation with its negroes. 
Nevertheless it was an annoyance ; another 
field had to be sought for the young Liberals 
who were just fleshing their blades. "The 
young guard is beaten," said Thiers, already 
drawing his metaphors from that fertile source, 
the Empire. But the defeat was not serious, 
and the " Constitutionnel " retained a more for- 
midable arm, or rather army. For that jour- 
nal Thiers wrote in a style as easy, clear, and 
fascinating as ever, and perhaps more trenchant 
and polished than that of his other writings. 
He was not yet master of that propriety of 
political language, that art of disposing great 
masses of facts, that lucid and persuasive de- 



The Restoration. 23 

duction, more cogent, perhaps, than the logic 
of correcter and more forcible writers, of 
which he has since produced so many mod- 
els. But he treated political matters frankly, 
without invective or acrimony, overlooking 
puerile reproaches, and locking horns with the 
official spokesmen of the Government on the 
great questions at issue between aristocracy 
and democracy, emigration and patriotism, and 
above all, between the Restoration and the 
Revolution. Not all of his articles were direct 
political polemics ; every subject gave oppor- 
tunity for the expression of free and reason- 
able opinions as held by a man of flexible, 
clear, and serious intellect. 

He even wrote for the " Globe " a series of 
articles on the Exhibition of Paintings, in 
1822, — articles which were then collected 
and published in pamphlet form. He di- 
vined the strange genius of Delacroix and 
predicted the popularity of Horace Vernet, 
who made his debut at that exhibition. Here 
is what he wrote of Gerard's picture repre- 
senting Corinne inspired, which has been so 
often engraved : — 

" The romance of ' Corinne ' is thought to be the most 
fascinating work of a celebrated woman who aston- 
ished her century by the strength and vivacity of her 
organization, and especially by a boldness of thought 



24 Thiers. 

foreign to her sex. Restless, impassioned, directed 
by the accident of her education toward lofty aims, 
Madame de Stael brought to these high intellectual 
regions all a woman's nature. Filling her books 
with warmth and with brilliant gleams of truth, 
she satisfied the multitude, which asks only to be 
moved and dazzled. But she never equalled the 
deep passion of Rousseau or the gentle passion of 
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre ; she made everywhere 
attempts that were mistaken for results, missed the 
natural grace of the being that keeps its place, and 
was punished for not having kept her place, by want 
of charm, by disorder of mind, and by a celebrity 
whose burden the strongest man could scarcely 
bear. 

" Madame de Stael's observations upon society are 
just and penetrating, — they prove her high intelli- 
gence ; but her poetry is false. ' Delphine ' seems to 
me, therefore, preferable to * Corinne.' If, however, 
it is always best to be one's self, Madame de Stael 
should have reached perfection in ' Corinne,' which is 
the epic of herself. But she is here too much her- 
self, surrenders too freely to all the excesses of her 
spirit. Yielding to that mystical German taste for 
what is just now termed the ' impressive ' style, — 
which consists not in arousing sensations, but in 
eternally describing the sensations one feels, — 
Madame de Stael has succeeded no better than so 
many others in describing Italy ; she has portrayed 
her impressions rather than the land that produced 
them. The ancients depicted things ; Bernardin de 



The Restoration. 25 

Saint-Pierre also depicted things, — they did not 
count their heart- beats one by one. And this is what 
gives their pictures such reaUty and Hfe." 

It is important to cite this passage, severe 
as it is, for Thiers would at no time have dis- 
avowed it. It was one of his peculiarities that 
he had no taste, or rather no esteem, for femi- 
nine genius. He had still less taste for the 
kind of literature that he here styles " im- 
pressif," — one of the few neologisms which 
escaped his pen, and for which he would have 
been more repentant than for the critique it- 
self. Then, as later, Thiers entertained a very 
low opinion of the literature which consists in 
describing the impressions which things or 
ideas have made upon an author. His own 
method was to deal directly with things and 
ideas. He disliked and scarcely understood 
the subjectiveness, the psychological analysis, 
the scrutiny of sensations, which has been so 
greatly overdone during the last hundred 
years, and his distaste for declamation included 
the romantic and descriptive styles. No man 
was ever more unlike Rene, Faust, or Adolphe ■} 
that dreamy spirit which, detaching itself from 
all personality, occupies itself with introspec- 
tion and self-analysis, is of the North; M. 

1 Hero of Benjamin Constant's novel. — Tr. 



26 Thiers. 

Thiers had all the clearness, security, and 
promptness of the Southern temperament. He 
knew no discouragement, no indecision, no 
regret for any course once taken. Of the two 
great families which divide the intellectual 
world, he belonged to the family of Voltaire, 
not to that of Rousseau. 

This taste for simplicity, clearness, reality, 
pervaded his political articles in the " Consti- 
tutionnel." The Restoration school of journal- 
ists was a school of statesmen. The more 
philosophical school of the " Globe " and the 
more practical school of the " Constitutionnel " 
represented the two chief currents of the 
French Revolution. Notwithstanding recent 
paradoxical attempts to question the useful 
results of this Revolution, we may say that it 
established and aimed to realize three prin- 
ciples: First, the philosophic freedom of the 
human understanding, — the dearest wish of 
mankind from the time of the Renascence ; 
next, the remoulding, in accordance with the 
principle of equality, of the mediaeval social 
order which still existed ; finally, political 
liberty, under the only form then or now 
known, that of representative or parliamentary 
government These three principles — free- 
dom of thought, social equality, political lib- 
erty — were threatened at every moment by 



The Restoration. 27 

the Restoration. There was no official public 
defence of the first two, while the third, which 
is the security for the two others, frequently- 
seemed to be endangered. These principles 
were the horror of the clergy and the nobility, 
and these bodies arrogated to themselves a 
preponderant influence. The Catholicism of 
that time, less inclined to legends and to ultra- 
montanism than that of to-day, was more 
counter-revolutionary, more distinctly abso- 
lutist. It was a religion of emigrants and of 
courtiers. Almost without exception, defend- 
ers of the Church were enemies of freedom. 
The nobility regretted the privileges of which 
they had been so recently shorn. The Mon- 
archy, especially under Charles X., would not 
admit the permanence of the Charter, and 
refused to regard it as the sanction of the work 
of 1789. The presence of a Bourbon upon the 
throne was to the Bourbon mind evidence 
enough of the defeat of the Revolution. At 
bottom, Charles X. had no more respect for 
the Chambers than Louis XV. had for the 
Parliament of Paris ; this was shown in 1830. 

Even if they did not prepare a coup d'etat, 
the court, the king, and the Royalists thought 
of it as a last resource which would be resisted 
by none but the ambitious, the senseless, and 
the designing, — for it is thus that partisans 



28 Thiers. 

characterize those who may be separated from 
them by some shade of opinion. What was the 
Ministry during the greater part of the Resto- 
ration, if not a party in power? Now, Thiers 
has somewhere said of a party in power that it 
is " a thunderbolt in the hands of a child." 

The situation was a very critical one for all 
who desired the definitive triumph of the French 
Revolution, and every man had his own solu- 
tion of the problem. Some, like M. de Lafay- 
ette, looked upon the case as decided, and 
thought that the conspiracy of the Monarchy 
against the Charter justified conspiracy of an- 
other kind. For M. de Lafayette any mon- 
archy was, at bottom, merely a disagreeable 
concession which he might feel bound to make 
to his reason and to his country. None knew 
better than he the Old Regime and its miseries, 
which he had understood and condemned even 
if he had not himself been one of the sufferers. 
He recalled his youthful indignation when, as 
he was walking at Chavaniac, seeing the peas- 
ants kneeling to him as he passed, and kissing 
his hands, he said between his teeth : " Patience ! 
patience ! I must submit to it this once more, 
— but it is the last time." His suspicion was 
too well justified by his memory; and though 
he preferred the Bourbon Monarchy to the 
Empire, he cherished toward the Bourbons a 



The Restoration. 29 

distrustful repugnance. Public opinion having, 
however, accepted the legitimate king at the 
hands of foreigners, Lafayette had consented 
to what he regarded as a contract equally bind- 
ing upon the king and upon himself. Accord- 
ingly, when a reactionary ministry was formed, 
when the rumors of a coup d'etat became con- 
tinual, he considered the contract void. And 
as there was for him but a step from thought 
to action, the moment he felt that he had a 
right to conspire, he conspired without reckon- 
ing the chances of success. 

An old-fashioned party of this kind was cer- 
tainly the least dangerous of all to the Bourbon 
Monarchy ; for rarely has an unorganized band 
of malcontents prevailed against the power and 
organization of a government. This party was 
scarcely represented in the press ; in the Cham- 
ber it was represented only by M. de Lafayette, 
M. d'Argenson, and M. Manuel. It worked 
chiefly by means of secret societies composed 
of intrepid young men, among whom were some 
Bonapartists. Speaking of this party, Madame 
de Simiane, a stanch royalist, said to M. de 
Lafayette: "The honest men of your party 
have no superiors. Your ^lite is much better 
than ours, but our rank and file are as good 
as yours, and your scoundrels are worse than 
ours." 



30 Tkiefs. 

Another opposition was represented in the 
Tribune by M. Royer-Collard, M. Camille Jor- 
dan, M. de Serre sometimes, and Duke Victor 
de Broglie always. Their arms were more for- 
midable than conspiracies : in the first place, 
oratory; then the "Globe" newspaper, which 
was edited by young men whose names still 
occur to every mind when one speaks of wri- 
ters who have honored the vocation of journal- 
ism, — Vitet, Duchatel, Dubois, Sainte-Beuve, 
Duvergier de Hauranne, de Remusat. Feeling 
neither love nor hatred for the Restored Mon- 
archy, these men contented themselves with 
expressing opinions of absolute liberalism in 
philosophy, in politics, in literature. All that 
they asked of the Monarchy was the applica- 
tion of these principles ; and they accepted in 
advance any government, monarchy or repub- 
lic, which would respect their opinions. It was 
not at all difficult to perceive that, of all gov- 
ernments, the one least capable of practising 
their theories was precisely the one which 
styled itself " legitimate," — that is to say, 
superior and anterior to every constitution, — 
but this inference from their writings they did 
not care to make explicit. M. de Broglie, who 
figured in the first rank among them, said in 
his " Memoirs " that they were " Revolution- 
ists in ideas, Jacobins in meditations, applying 



The Restoration. 31 

to ideas the motto of the Revolution, ' Make 
way for me ! ' " 1 But in pohtics, as in Nature, 
opinions are represented by men, and systems 
by governments. From a revolution in opin- 
ion to a revolution in practice is but a step. 
The Emperor Napoleon was not mistaken in 
regarding theorists as dangerous. Yes, they 
are dangerous ; for they make men understand 
and hate tyranny, and point out to nations the 
safeguards of freedom ! ^ 

M. Thiers, by his very origin hostile to the 
Old Regime, almost a Bonapartist at college, 
prepossessed against clergy and aristocracy, 
had received his first political emotion from 
the spectacle of the double invasion of France 
and from the experience of the reaction of 
181 5 in the South. He brought to the Paris 
press the opinions of the French Revolution, 
whose cause he purposed resolutely to uphold, 
without hatred or wrath, without weakness or 
concession. His first articles in the "Constitu- 
tionnel " show that his opposition was founded 
upon the necessity of the case rather than 
upon the authority of principles. Never for a 
moment was he anarchical; from the outset V 
his spirit of freedom was restrained by the 

^ Souvenirs du feu due de Broglie, ii. 137. 
2 A page, dealing a little more in detail with the attitude 
of the Doctrinaire party, is here omitted. — Tr. 



32 Thiers. 

spirit of government. Less practically revolu- 
tionary than the deputies of the extreme Left, 
and less theoretically so than the writers for the 
" Globe," he had drawn from the Constituent 
Assembly, from the Convention, and from the 
Empire, a middle conclusion, — that of the 
necessity of a constitutional monarchy. But 
" he had a love for realities ; " more than this, 
he had respect for facts. Taking counsel of 
history, he sought the type of this normal gov- 
ernment where it in fact existed, — that is, in 
England, — and what he advocated was merely 
to shape the result of the French Revolution 
upon the model of the English. This was at 
bottom a new policy, although admiration for 
English liberty was then as now part of the 
Liberal tradition. 

This policy he consistently supported, first 
in the " Constitutionnel," later in the " Na- 
tional," a paper which he founded after the 
failure, on account of minor differences, of a 
plan of union with the " Globe." The Doc- 
trinaires, innovators in every field, were econo- 
mists and romanticists. Already Thiers had 
his rooted dislike of free trade and of politi- 
cal economy, which he impertinently styled 
" wearisome literature." ^ But wherever he 

1 La litterattcre ejtnuyeuse. Carlyle's " dismal science " 
may be merely a free translation of this. — Tr. 



The Restoration. ^iZ 

wrote, he appeared convinced that the cruel 
memories of the Revolution were too present 
to men's minds to admit the possibility of the 
Republic. He kept himself free from the illu- 
sions of Lafayette, Vv^hile at the same time he 
feared lest the absolute principles of the Doc- 
trinaires might bring about too radical a 
change of political organization. With a saga- 
city of which he was to give many a proof, he 
saw that the obstacle to freedom was neither 
the Charter, nor centralization, nor even the 
monarchical form ; it was the principle of le- 
gitimacy. This principle concealed a power 
forever dangerous to the nation and its institu- 
tions ; and a sovereign who should lay claim to 
no prior and superior right would give all the 
necessary pledges. Thus a revolution might 
be accomplished in a spirit of construction 
rather than of destruction. The thought was 
simple, strong, and nevertheless quite novel- 
Such a government, founded on the ruins of 
the personal monarchy of divine right, must 
have a king who could accept and love the 
principles of the French Revolution, who 
should be sufficiently exalted in rank to have 
no rivals or equals, and sufficiently detached 
from the House of Bourbon never to unite 
with it. These qualifications could be actually 
recognized in a prince who stood upon the 
3 



34 Thiers. 

steps of the throne. Without foreseeing that 
his accession would be the logical result of the 
political combinations of a young journalist 
from Provence, without in any way conspiring, 
this prince, taking counsel only of the mem- 
ories of his family and of his youth, did noth- 
ing to render impossible the part he was to 
play. The Duke of Orleans, liberal, popular, 
in disgrace at court, was not an Emigrant, and 
had taken no part in the errors of the depart- 
ure and the return of the royal house. He 
had served in the army of the Republic, and 
his father had given but too many pledges to 
the French Revolution. 

These various circumstances tended to ren- 
der the Revolution of 1830 acceptable to a 
public which is not very open to mere reason- 
ing and theory. Nevertheless it was theory, — 
without which, said Royer-Collard, "it is im- 
possible to know what we say when we speak, 
or what we do when we act" — ^^that had guided 
Thiers in the choice of his opinion, and had 
brought him so near the standpoint of M. 
Guizot, who was to be so long his rival. The 
latter, without directly urging, imitation, fre- 
quently cited the example of England. Thiers 
said very distinctly, " We must cross the 
Channel, not the Atlantic." In all his articles 
he supported a rational Orleanism ; he threw 



The Restoration. 35 

all the flexibility and fertility of his mind upon 
the task of proving this the only practicable 
means of securing the triumph of the Revolu- 
tion, and of terminating it, as it had begun, by 
the reality of parliamentary government. He 
advocated these principles for eight years with 
alternations of haste and patience, according as 
the ever-expected coitp d'etat seemed more 
or less imminent. Notwithstanding the great 
boldness of the thought, the expression was so 
carefully kept within bounds that he was never 
prosecuted, while M. Mignet, who afterward 
became so prudent, and the scrupulous M. 
Dubois, were condemned in the police court. 

The general spirit of these articles does 
honor to the moderation and perspicacity of 
Thiers, and their result went beyond all his 
hopes. It was a policy of reason formulated 
in anticipation of the mistakes of the gov- 
ernment; its success required moderate rev- 
olutionists, bold conservatives, fearless lib- 
erals, a brave and wise people, a prudent and 
unprejudiced prince, statesmen of various 
parties uniting in a common work. And the 
astonishing thing about this policy is that it 
succeeded. A day came when King Charles 
X., who, according to the apt phrase of M. 
Mole, was " rather rash than resolute," gave 
the long expected if not long sought oppor- 



3^ Thiers. 

tunity by conspiring against his own govern- 
ment, and thus made way for the pure Revo- 
lution of 1830. 

PoHtical writing did not exhaust Thiers' 
activity. He wrote, for example, a biography 
of Miss Bellamy of Covent Garden Theatre, an 
article on Boisser6e's book, one on Cologne 
Cathedral, and a study of John Law, — the 
first and almost the only article of a " Progres- 
sive Encyclopaedia" which had been announced 
with great parade. In an article on the me- 
moirs of Marshal Gouvion Saint-Cyr^ appears 
the first trace of that taste for battles, and of 
that talent for describing their fortunes, for 
which he was afterward to be so famous. This 
passage had the singular fate of being trans- 
lated almost word for word by Mr. Disraeli, 
and inserted without acknowledgment in his 
panegyric on the Duke of Wellington. More- 
over, M, Littre, with all his penetration, failed 
to recognize Thiers in it, and printed it in his 
edition of the works of Armand Carrel.^ It 
begins : — 

" It would be difficult to persuade men, especially 
those of a generation like ours, which has seen so 
many soldiers, that of all the arts, the art of war gives 

1 Revue frangaise, November, 1829, p. 196. 

2 CEuvres politiques et litteraires d'Armand Carrel, v. 132. 



The Restoration. 37 

the greatest exercise to the mind. Nevertheless, this 
is true ; and the greatness of the art consists in the 
fact that it demands character as well as intellect, 
that it brings into play the entire man. In this 
respect the art of governing is the only art which is 
like it or equal to it. Consider, in fact, the works of 
the most renowned poets, scholars, orators, — even 
their finest works shall never reveal to you the tem- 
per of their souls. Consider, on the contrary, the 
actions of generals and of statesmen, — invariably 
you shall read in these actions the character as well 
as the mind of the doer, for a man governs and a 
man fights with his whole soul. Be it understood, 
however, that governing does not here mean admin- 
istering a province, and that fighting means more 
than charging at the head of a regiment. Otherwise 
this assertion would involve the ascription of mind 
and soul to too many men." 

It v^ill be profitable to quote also an article 
written in response to M. de Montlosier. M. 
Sainte-Beuve has already printed it in his " Con- 
temporary Portraits ; " but how is it possible to 
speak of the literature of this century without 
following in the footsteps of this critic? 

" No ! before '89 we had not all that we have since 
had j for it would have been madness to rebel with- 
out motive, and a whole nation does not become in 
a moment insane. Those concessions which you call 
boons, and which I call restitutions, were extorted by 



38 Thiers. 

the Revolution alone. This one word recalls them 
all, and the contrasting word recalls the lack of them. 
Reflect that before '89 we had no annual represen- 
tation, no right to vote taxes, no equality before the 
law, no eligibility to office. You maintain that all 
these things were in men's minds ; but the Revolution 
was required in order to realize them in laws. 

"I can be as frank as you, and I admit that our 
party as well as yours is made up of men, and is 
moved by the passions of men ; the only difference 
between us is that of the justice of the cause. 
Among us, as among you, there may be vanities and 
wild passions ; plebeians born in our ranks might have 
made war upon the fatherland ; but you must con- 
cede, on the other hand, that nobles bom in your 
ranks might have served in the Committee of Public 
Safety. We are all men, and our condition is hard. 
All parties have their good men and their bad men ; 
they differ only in aim. But you will agree that, 
between a Bailly dying with head and heart full of 
truths, and a d'Epr^mesnil dying full of infatuation, 
although the sacrifice is the same the merit is not the 
same. Each died for his cause, but which .one for 
the truth?" 

This is the opinion of the French Revolution 
that Thiers expressed in his history, — a his- 
tory Mfhich would alone sufifice to give him a 
place among great writers. In four years 
(1823 to 1827), besides his other works and 
in spite of his youth, of which he must have 



The Restoration. 39 

had to hear much, he succeeded in pubHshing 
ten volumes, covering the history of France 
from 1789 to the i8th Brumaire. He had 
been obHged to associate with himself M. 
Bodin. This protecting name had been in- 
sisted upon by the publisher, who feared he 
would not be able to cover the expenses of 
the work, and who gained a fortune from it. 
After the third volume (1824), M. Bodin dis- 
appeared, and Thiers alone confronted the 
public judgment. 

It was in fact a bold and serious enterprise, 
to relate, in the presence of those who had 
themselves been actors or sufferers, the story 
of a time so confused, so varied, so generous 
and so base, involving so many men and so 
many deeds. One might write the history of 
a whole century without finding so great a 
number of original characters to delineate and 
so many explanations to seek for doubtful 
actions. More than once the historian must 
have paused to ask himself what choice he 
would have made among the diverse factions 
of the time ; more than once he must have 
perceived what his own experience afterward 
taught him, that in time of revolution the 
great difficulty is not always to do, but to 
know, one's duty. Moreover, the path had 
then been in no wise marked out. To-day we 



40 Thiers. 

have at our disposal contemporary narratives, 
memoirs of all kinds, summaries which enable 
the mere schoolboy to form an opinion. At 
that time the historian had access only to the 
most impassioned testimonies bristling with 
apologies and recriminations ; and witnesses in 
a court of justice, subject as they are to error 
and prejudice, are far superior to historical 
witnesses. He who first said : " I am not sure 
of this circumstance, for I have it from an eye- 
witness," was surely thinking of the spectator 
of a political occurrence. Contemporary his- 
tory is merely a theme for declamation. 

M. Thiers, who was in the course of his life 
to teach the French people many things which 
they have not wholly forgotten, began by 
teaching them the good they ought to think 
of their own history and of themselves. Was 
he cajoling them? Few critics said so then, 
and fewer still have thought so since. It has, 
however, been said, with some show of reason, 
that he lacked indignation against the crimes 
that stained the Revolution; and in such a 
case, to lack indignation would be to lack im- 
partiality. The reproach would be just if it 
related to a dramatic history, such as Lamar- 
tine's " History of the Girondins," and the like. 
But Thiers' history is a simple narrative, the 
author of which does not profess to instruct 



The Restoration. 41 

the reader what he should think. Neverthe- 
less, it would be easy to cite more than one 
page where misfortunes and errors are set 
forth in a m.anner calculated to move the 
reader. Who should feel the wounds inflicted 
upon humanity and justice, if not those who 
love the Revolution only for its generous ori- 
gin and its beneficent results? It was the 
Moderate party, the Liberal party, what is 
called in the jargon of the Assembly the Left 
Centre, — the party of which M. Thiers be- 
came the leader, — which suffered most from 
that deviation from the principles of humanity 
and justice during one of the periods of the 
Revolution. Who, more than the Liberals, have 
had reason to deplore the fact that two years 
of the refined and just eighteenth century 
should have deserved that sinister name, the 
Terror? What stain of blood has this party, 
save its own, shed in the cause? Was it not 
the sufferer by all these crimes? While all 
political factions in turn have invoked against 
it these bloody memories as titles either to pity 
or to admiration, it alone has always averted 
its eyes from them with horror. To this day 
we are the victims of this fatal inconsistency 
of a nation which simply wished to raise itself 
from bondage. At the end of a hundred 
years the imaginations of men are still haunted 



42 Thiers. 

by the Terror : it renders some too timid to de- 
mand or to accept the freedom they long for ; 
it renders others more impassioned for Hcense, 
v/hich is only one of the forms of oppression. 
The red flag in politics, like the purple rag 
brandished by the torero in the arena, serves 
at once as an excitant and as a bugbear. It is 
one of the most potent arguments of the ene- 
mies of freedom, right and left, and nothing is 
more fatal to the necessary balance of men's 
minds. 

But though he is not insensible to the suffer- 
ings of humanity, Thiers takes much more 
pains to understand men than to judge them. 
He indulges in no paradoxes about the Jaco- 
bins, like those which M. de Lamartine, twenty- 
five years later, so inexcusably set forth with 
his splendid coloring. Thiers endeavors, not 
to justify them, but to touch the springs that 
moved them. *' We find ourselves transported 
with him," wrote Sainte-Beuve, " to that dread- 
ful mountain which we had beheld from a 
distance, veiled with storms and lurid with 
lightning; we ascend its cliffs, we explore it 
as we should an extinct volcano, and we come 
to understand that things could not have ap- 
peared from its summit as they appeared from 
below. Without clearing the guilty, we are 
led to account for them." 



The Restoration. 43 

Thiers, like M. Mignet, is an impassioned 
partisan of the French Revolution ; and for 
such writers private misfortunes are swallowed 
up in the greatness of the result. Thiers is 
like a general in battle, who cannot lament 
every wound because his eyes are fixed upon 
his aim, — victory. Individual conflicts, suffer- 
ings, death, seem inevitable, and he is led to 
something that resembles fatalism ; how can 
the historian quite guard against this? How 
resist the impulse to make one fact spring from 
another, to give to events and to men a more 
logical character than belongs to them, to 
deem their vicissitudes unavoidable? The 
better the story is told, the more that idea pre- 
dominates, the less one perceives that events 
might have taken a different turn, or that it is 
possible to imagine a more probable course of 
things. It would be very convenient to think 
public misfortunes mere accidents, easily avoid- 
able. But no ; events must have taken place 
in such an order and in no other. If this im- 
pression be natural in a well-constructed 
narrative, how should Thiers escape the stum- 
bling-block? In his purely narrative manner 
he frequently omits to draw conclusions ; the 
reader is left to reason for himself, and to con- 
struct a philosophy of history as he goes 
along. The author is the victim of his ex- 



Thiers. 



treme clearness, which exhibits facts in a bright 
light, and gives to all the character of evi- 
dence, of rigorous logic. But this logic is 
never used to justify excesses. 

His style is original by dint of being simple. 
It is in some sense the style of Voltaire ; but 
Voltaire, more elegant, sharpens his wit and 
makes it felt, while the satirical side in Thiers 
does not appear until later, in his speeches. 
In his histor}", the eftbrt is to exhibit nothing 
except the facts. But the effort is not felt; 
these facts, so numerous, so complicated, show 
as through pellucid glass (the comparison is 
by Thiers himself), and not only facts and men, 
but all the details of administration and of 
modern war. Too frequently historians are 
thoroughly acquainted with only some features 
of their subject, and to these features they 
sacrifice the rest, concealing their embarrass- 
ment by suppositions or declamations. Here 
ever}-thing is in an equal light ; by intelligent 
and assiduous labor the historian has mastered 
all the documents, all the State papers, all the 
negotiations at home and abroad. Not onl)^ 
was it the first time that the history of the 
Revolution had been written, it was the first time 
that life had thus been infused into historical 
writing. The author is not merely a historian, 
but a strategist, a financier, a statesman. 



The Restoration. 45 

The style is so easy that one does not at 
first sight feel all its merit. It must be borne 
in mind that down to the present century, in 
France at least, history had been written only 
by literary men, who related it, as a pupil in 
rhetoric composes a Latin or a French dis- 
course, without reality, without ever having 
lived, and without understanding what life is, in 
the world where the fates of empires are deter- 
mined. Historians surveyed their subject from 
below, sometimes, in the case of superior minds, 
from above ; but it is on a level with his sub- 
ject that Thiers stands. In his " History of 
Charles XIL" Voltaire had given historians a 
lesson, and had shown them that the scope of 
their subject has widened immensely, — that 
it requires more precision than formerly, more 
attention to customs, morals, law, commerce. 
But what a difference between a short and bril- 
liant biography of a hero, and that entire world 
of writers, of orators, of generals, of stormy 
assemblies, which lives again on the pages of 
Thiers ! As we read these pages, we feel that 
the robust intelligence of the author fits him 
not merely to relate the destinies of France, 
but to shape them. 

When King Charles X. realized the gloom- 
iest predictions of his enemies by issuing the 
Ordinances of July, 1830, he opened to Thiers 



46 Thiers. 

the career of the statesman. France replied 
to the Ordinances by the triumphant insurrec- 
tion which was so promptly appeased by the 
organization of the Government of the Duke 
of Orleans under the happily chosen name of 
Louis Philippe, — a name recalling neither the 
Louises nor the Charleses nor the Philips, and 
severing at a single stroke the link between 
the monarchy of the present and that of the 
past. 



CHAPTER 11. 

THE JULY GOVERNMENT. 

'T^HE Monarchy of July had no luck. In 
■*- the first place it fell, — and to fall is 
always bad for a government, — and after its 
fall its principles were but feebly defended by 
those who had served it, and even by those 
who had founded it. Moreover, the later 
writers who have dealt with it have had their 
prepossessions, and have attacked it now 
from the conservative and again from the 
revolutionary standpoint. Like the Protestant 
religion, exposed to the anathemas of the 
Catholics against free investigation, and to the 
strictures of the critics who condemn that 
investigation as not being free enough, the 
revolutionary Monarchy has been fusiladed 
from every side. 

Very few, in fact, ever loved the July Gov- 
ernment in and for itself, and for the double 
reason that it was both the antithesis to the 
Restoration and the antithesis to Jacobinism. 
King Louis Philippe was one day complaining 



48 Thiers, 

of his Prime Minister, M. Mole ; and when his 
interlocutor replied that the minister was greatly 
attached to the Government, the king retorted : 
" Not so, for he is not before everything else 
an anti-legitimist." What defender of the 
Orleans Monarchy would speak thus to-day? 
After the fall of that fragile edifice it was natu- 
ral that every one, according to his nature, 
should revert to his former faith, — some be- 
coming Legitimists or Fusionists ; others, who 
had no taste for the pomp and circumstance 
incident to monarchy, accepting or even seek- 
ing a republic. After 1848, M. Guizot, for 
example, could not fail to turn to the Right, 
M. Dufaure and M. de Tocqueville to the Left. 
Those who were long inspired by the spirit 
of 1830 are rare. Rarer still are the publicists 
who have defended or even understood the 
constitutional theory of a government which 
had nothing of monarchy but the name, in 
which the national sovereignty was recognized, 
the king subject to the laws, and in which the 
casting vote belonged to the people. It must 
be admitted that this Monarchy, though based 
upon a revolution, is as legitimate as if it had 
descended in a direct line from Louis XIV. 
It is not a chance power, but a government 
with the same rights as others, and perhaps 
greater duties. One of the most distinguished 



The yzily Government. 49 

historians of that epoch, M. Thureau-Dangin, 
has recently received the sanction of the 
French Academy. He is not absolutely an 
enemy; and yet the system that grew out of 
the Revolution of 1830 seems to him quite 
foreign and hateful. Of the government and 
of the personages of that time he has con- 
structed an image that has but little semblance 
to the reality. Whenever M. de Broglie or 
M. Guizot takes some liberal or popular meas- 
ure, he is ready to accuse them of weakness or 
apostasy. Whenever, on the other hand, M. 
Thiers signs a government bill or performs a 
conservative act, — an easy thing for him, — 
M. Thureau-Dangin takes care to remark that 
he is violating all his principles. He seems 
almost to regard Thiers as one of those bri- 
gands turned policemen by whom, according 
to M. Renan, social order was first founded. 
He fails to see that both classes were merely 
conforming to the consequences of the Revo- 
lution which had triumphed in July, 1830. 

This is not all ; the July Monarchy has suf- 
fered the further misfortune of being disliked, 
despised, traduced, by imaginative writers. 
And these writers are not without influence 
upon the opinions and especially upon the 
impressions of posterity. This Government 
based upon a philosophical theory, whose found- 
4 



50 Thiers. 

ers were men of letters, whose ministers were 
members of the academies, under which power 
was gained by hterary and oratorical talent, in 
which men rose by intelligence alone, has been 
relentlessly scouted by those who owed their 
freedom of speech to the victims of their sar- 
casms. Except Casimir Delavigne, Scribe, 
and Alfred de Musset, all the writers of the 
time — Balzac, George Sand, Frederic Soulie, 
Eugene Sue, Charles de Bernard, Lamartine, — 
affected to scoff at the bourgeois Governmerit 
which aimed to give power to merit alone. 
Victor Hugo himself, although a peer of 
France, did but tardy justice to it when, much 
later, he drew a just portrait of King Louis 
Philippe in "Les Miserables." 

The cause of this strange aberration of liter- 
ary sentiment is far to seek. It might be sup- 
posed that young lords of the Old Regime or 
socialistic workingmen are the only men ca- 
pable of fascinating the artless heroines of 
Balzac and of George Sand. This, however, is 
not necessarily true. M. Sardou has given the 
Engineer an enviable place in his novels and 
comedies ; and this Engineer may be justly sus- 
pected of entertaining Republican sentiments, 
without ceasing to be loved. In judging these 
writers we must take into account their natural 
disposition to carp. Literature adheres to its 



The July Government. 51 

traditional attacks upon power, even when that 
power has itself become literary. Perhaps 
when statesmen had no longer any claim to 
power save that of being men of intellect, 
rivalry necessarily arose. Down to the French 
Revolution there had been a gulf between men 
of letters and statesmen. The former looked 
up from beneath to the masters of the world, 
whom they made no attempt to equal or even 
to rival. Modern society grants power on the 
same conditions as literary fame ; it would seem 
that letters had been dignified, but literary men 
have preferred to believe the contrary. It is 
a weakness of human nature that it does not 
greatly respect what it does not fear ; that this 
weakness tends to disappear, is a fact which 
does honor to our time. But, to take the case 
of a very excellent and fair-minded man of 
letters, it is not improbable that M. Merimee 
bore more easily the heavy yoke of an em- 
peror's nephew and of an inglorious minister 
chosen by the favor of the master, than he had 
borne the authority, liberal as it was, of one 
of his confreres of the Academy, who had no 
claim to power save that of having written the 
History of Civilization, or the History of the 
Consulate, — works whose style is inferior to 
that of " The Etruscan Vase." 

Thus the July Revolution, which was in- 



52 Thiers. 

tended to establish the reign of reason, — and 
what is more intellectual than that ? — became 
a target for the raillery of the new literature. 
Under the Restoration the purely literary men, 
whether vaudeville-writers or novelists, from 
M, Etienne to M. de Chateaubriand, made 
every effort to transform themselves into jour- 
nalists, and the first ambition of every one 
who could hold a pen was to write a politi- 
cal pamphlet. The new generation took an 
opposite course. Weariness, the need of in- 
novation, the scepticism that treads upon the 
heels of revolutions, the unexampled develop- 
ment of the imagination, — a faculty that had 
been long benumbed in France, — all con- 
tributed to make men seek in the art of 
writing the forms and the effects of style. The 
theories of art for art's sake led young men to 
think that literature has no aim beyond itself, 
and that it is the privilege of talent to repudiate 
its debt to ideas. The most beautiful phrase 
was to be that which contained the least 
meaning. Every one knows what dexterity 
Theophile Gautier displayed in this game. 
Accordingly, it was deemed original and con- 
venient to exclude from the Republic of 
Letters all who made a useful application of 
their art, especially those who employed it in 
writing or speaking upon poHtics, — above all 



The July Government. 53 

the moderate, liberal politics for which artists 
of all classes expressed their contempt by the 
term boitrgeois. 

It must, however, be admitted that if the 
men of letters could not pardon the Govern- 
ment for giving them the freedom for which 
they should have been eager, the politicians 
repaid them with an equal disdain. The late 
Duke of Broglie characterized the literature 
of his time as " toad's broth." One of the 
first journalists of our age, M. John Lemoinne, 
has related that during the Insurrection of 
1 871 M. Thiers asked him one day concerning 
M. de Sacy. " He is growing old in peace," 
was the reply, " consoling himself for present 
evils by reading the classics." "Ah! he is 
quite right," cried M. Thiers ; " Romanticism 
is the Commune ! " 

The month of July, 1830, presented to the 
world the noble spectacle of a nation sure of its 
position, revolting against arbitrary authority, 
awakening against it, to cite the famous words 
of the Duke of Broglie, " that delicate and 
dreadful right which slumbers at the feet of 
all human institutions as their sad and final 
safeguard." The still blood-stained people of 
Paris contented themselves with a moderate 
solution, which was in entire harmony with the 
national opinion. According to some sages 



54 Thiers. 

of to-day this moderation was the efifect of 
fear. France was like a boy who, having 
climbed too high, clings to a branch that he 
may not fall and perish. On the contrary, it 
was like a squadron which has been ordered 
to occupy a given position, and which takes 
and holds that position. The bold and rea- 
sonable spirit of Thiers seems to have pre- 
sided over these events. We know by many 
witnesses how great was the part he played ; 
it was he who went to Neuilly to bring back 
the Duke of Orleans. But before relating the 
last act, the first must not be forgotten, — the 
protest of the journalists which inaugurated 
this Revolution. 

In the office of the " National," St. Mark 
Street, was held a meeting of writers, who 
were more immediately affected than other 
citizens by the July Ordinances, for the pur- 
pose of considering, not armed resistance, 
which was not anticipated, but a protest the 
form of which was still to be determined. M. 
Leon Pillet, editor of the " Journal de Paris," 
proposed to draw up a collective protest which 
those might sign who would. This proposition 
being eagerly accepted, M. Thiers, with Messrs. 
Chatelain, Cauchois-Lemaire, and Remusat, was 
selected to write the paper, but it was Thiers 
who composed the whole of it. This is not 



The July Govem^nent. 55 

the only opportunity he had to protest against 
arbitrary acts or infringements of the national 
sovereignty. It is interesting to see how well 
he measured the force of his style with the 
gravity of the deed, and to compare this 
memorial with his words nearly fifty years 
later, apropos of the i6th of May, 1877. But 
the times were very different. In 1830 matters 
were very serious, and M. de Broglie said on 
that very evening to one of the signers, think- 
ing him not sufficiently alive to his danger, 
"Do not be deceived; those people will be 
extremely cruel." 

For Thiers this manifesto marks the transi- 
tion from the career of the journalist to that of 
the statesman, from the article to the action. 
Before he spoke in the Chamber he published 
a pamphlet ^ defending the Revolution and the 
resultant Monarchy. This brochure sets forth 
the principles of the new Constitution as pub- 
licists had beforehand explained them and as 
the friends of this Monarchy accepted them. 
In order to understand the July Government, 
we must bear in mind the conflict between dif- 
ferent classes of its friends, — between those 
who had heartily favored Louis Philippe and 
those who had merely accepted the situation, 

1 La Monarchic de 1830, par A. Thiers, depute des Bouches- 
du-Rhone. 8'°, Paris. A. Mesnier, 1831. 



56 Thiers. 

as in a shipwreck one takes the first frail bark 
that comes along. The one class, whose chief 
care was to keep intact the party of progress, 
desired to make the Revolution bring forth an 
abundant harvest of freedom and reform ; the 
others attached themselves to the past, and 
sought to make good their alliance with the 
friends of the Old Regime. During the first 
years the difference was not very obvious, both 
parties being occupied in defending the men- 
aced social order; but the dissension was to 
develop into open hostility. 

Never have circumstances appeared better 
suited to satisfy philosophers and to throw 
light upon an exposition of the doctrines of 
constitutional law. The example of resorting 
to force in order to change institutions, with- 
out valid motive, without wise reflection, had 
been set by the Bourbon Government itself, so 
that the favorable role of resistance had fallen 
to society. But reasonable and gentle as this 
resistance was, it was a revolution, — the swift 
work of passion and force ; and both in passion 
and in force there is a danger difficult to sup- 
press. Their greatest danger lies in the fact 
that they offer a spectacle which disturbs the 
conscience and the reason. It was to re-estab- 
lish tranquillity in France, to show the people 
their victory, and to teach them not to abuse it. 



The July Government. 57 

that Thiers' pamphlet aimed. After a revolu- 
tion the statesman has to deal with three classes 
of people : first, those who regret the past sim- 
ply because it is the past; secondly, those who 
wish to profit by circumstances to carry the 
movement beyond its legitimate results ; finally, 
the class — -not the least dangerous nor the least 
numerous — who are frightened by the move- 
ment after having themselves encouraged it. 
This reaction of fear is the most formidable of 
all; we have encountered it more than once 
in the course of this century. 

It would be going beyond the scope of this 
very intelligent and practical brochure to in- 
quire how far the Government of 1830, or the 
succeeding Republic, was capable of fulfilling 
the wishes which the French people have en- 
tertained for the past hundred years. Both the 
Charter and the Constitution of 1875, with the 
difference of an intervening half-century and 
of universal suffrage, have realized what the 
French Revolution could not accomplish, but 
made possible. The failure of that Revolution 
was due solely to its sins against humanity, 
justice, and liberty, and all its lessons are 
favorable to the liberal policy. The conclu- 
sion must ever be that society and govern- 
ment, being human inventions, are subject to 
the great law of human affairs, and that poli- 



58 Thiers. 

tics is therefore governed by morality. In 
politics the relations of deed and law, passion 
and reason, are the same as elsewhere, and 
nothing is right that is not right, just that is 
not Just. Now under absolute power, whether 
it be that of the Old Regime or of modern 
dictatorship, human nature is never intact and 
pure, absolute power acting necessarily by in- 
timidation or corruption. It is political free- 
dom alone that leaves man his moral freedom ; 
it alone can serve as the corner-stone of legiti- 
mate authority, and the art of constitutions is 
to make reason prevail and to get it freely 
acknowledged. 

Under the Restoration, Thiers, being in 1830 
but thirty-three years old, would have been 
obliged to wait seven years longer before he 
could become a deputy; but the legal age was 
lowered by the new Constitution. Even before 
his election, in 1830, by the Electoral College 
of Aix, he took part in the deliberations of the 
Assembly in the capacity of Under-Secretary 
of State in the Finance Ministry, a post which 
he held under two successive ministers, — M. 
Louis and M. Laffitte. Before he had actually 
spoken, his method was familiar, the second of 
these Ministers having read from the Tribune 
expositions of financial policy which were by 
Thiers, and which, by their sagacity and sim- 



The July Government. 59 

plicity, had pleased the House. His friends 
were therefore not so anxious about what he 
might say, as about his manner. His enemies 
noted his short stature, his bearing, his eyes 
hidden behind his spectacles, his Southern ac- 
cent, which, however, soon wore off as his voice 
became intense and animated. For it must be 
admitted that he had enemies. Even then he 
had to suffer from the injustice of public opin- 
ion, from the violence of the press, from the 
ill-will of those who dislike new-comers or who 
fear rivals, from the contemptuous aversion of 
men of affairs for men of letters whose intelli- 
gence alone makes them politicians. 

It was his enemies who were pleased by his 
first two speeches on finance in the autumn of 
1830. He spoke with monotonous dififuseness, 
with hesitating and incorrect copiousness, and 
seemed incapable of effectively repelling the 
insults of the opposition journals. Never was 
a debiLt more deceptive. The Ministry was 
disliked by the deputies, who overwhelmed 
it with attacks of all sorts. It appeared to 
them — though the idea now seems very ex- 
aggerated to a reader of these speeches — 
that Thiers was trying to imitate the Girondins 
and the orators of the Mountain, and that, 
having through his historical studies become 
familiarized with Mirabeau, he had some am- 



6o Thiers. 

bition to resemble that Revolutionary orator. 
Distant as was the imitation, the effect of it was 
bad. In political assemblies it is dangerous to 
imitate any one. Of all kinds of oratory, par- 
liamentary eloquence is that which demands the 
most absolute sincerity and naturalness. A 
man may write otherwise than as he thinks or 
speaks, creating in himself an artificial talent 
which may be bold in a timid person, sentimen- 
tal in a hard and selfish person. Even a preacher 
in the pulpit, a lawyer at the bar, may, without 
offending, speak with an impassioned violence 
which contrasts strongly with his ordinary slug- 
gishness ; but before the House a man must 
appear as he is. One may certainly be a 
declaimer like M. Berryer, if declamation 
be, as in him, a second nature. M. Guizot 
was bound to express himself from the Tri- 
bune after the fashion of a doctrinaire pro- 
fessor, M. de Lamartine as a harmonious poet. 
In order to succeed, it was necessary that 
Thiers should hit upon a tone thoroughly in 
keeping with his person, his voice, his talent. 
The simplest borrowed phrase rings false from 
the Tribune. The Chambers are full of dis- 
tinguished men who have broken down as 
speakers for want of having struck the key 
suited to their personality. 

A few months after this partial check M. 



The July Government. 6i 

Thiers had happily triumphed, not only over 
his physical difficulties, but over the contempt 
and prejudice with which his maiden efforts 
were p-reeted. His first success was in the dis- 
cussion of the Address to the throne, shortly 
after the accession to power of M. Casimir 
Perier (March 13, 183 1). The Perier Ministry 
was completely in harmony with the principles 
of the late Revolution ; what distinguished it 
from the preceding administrations was the 
firmness with which these principles were sup- 
ported. Force and decision succeeded weak- 
ness and shuffling indecision. This change 
was certainly not of a character to displease 
Thiers, who was nevertheless embarrassed by 
the obligation of defending at times the Min- 
istry in which he had served. This he did, 
notably in reply to M. Humann, who in an 
exposition of the state of the treasury had 
been very aggressive. It was on this occasion 
that Thiers made his celebrated complaint 
against " the art of grouping figures." 

He was also somewhat distrustful of M. Casi- 
mir Perier, fearing lest the outspoken language 
of this minister might provoke a European war. 
It is well known how the great powers treated 
the Government of the House of Orleans. 
Metternich's Memoirs, unkind as they are, 
give but a faint idea of it ; for the prince, hos- 



62 Thiers. 

tile as he was to France, to constitutionalism, to 
liberalism, to all the isms, as he called them, 
had received the Revolution with the equanim- 
ity of a man who has foretold an event, who 
is dissatisfied with those who have rendered 
it inevitable, and who does not suffer from it 
himself 

The other conservative powers were more 
threatening, and the anxiety arising from this 
cause delayed Thiers' adhesion to a Minis- 
try which appealed to him in so many ways. 
At* last his confidence in the wisdom of the 
king, in the firmness of General Sebastiani, 
Minister of Foreign Affairs, in the good-will 
of England, and especially his own reflections 
(for ideas seldom came to him from without), 
all united to banish his distrust, and in the de- 
bate of August, 1 83 1, he made a speech on 
foreign affairs which was an event. Its merit 
was enhanced by its unexpectedness. The 
members of the former House could not be- 
lieve that this was the same man whom they 
had condemned to silence for the rest of his 
life. The speech has indeed some faults, but 
it shows also his best qualities, — order, clear- 
ness, precision, the art of making everything 
accessible, tangible, decisive. Its somewhat 
incorrect eloquence is animated by a warmth 
and a feeling which impart even to common- 



The July Government. 63 

places something of the originality of the 
speaker. It was at once perceived that he 
would rival Guizot as a master of the Tribune. 
Some years older than Thiers, Guizot had 
spoken in the last parliament of the Res- 
toration, and had likewise rapidly recovered 
himself after a first attempt which had fallen 
short of the hopes of the admirers of his great 
mind, his noble features, and his sonorous 
voice. It was certainly not by the last two 
qualities that Thiers distinguished himself; in 
fact, it is perhaps impossible to give an idea 
of him to those who have never heard him. 
There is in the orator's art something that 
must escape posterity, and for this very reason 
it is just that we should not be chary of our 
admiration for speeches which, even without 
the personal magic of the speaker and the 
responsive thrill of the audience, remain good 
and useful works. All speeches, even those 
of Thiers, gain by the author's delivery. His 
half-hidden gray eyes would flash with pro- 
found shrewdness, while his set features and 
his short hair made him resemble certain Ro- 
man busts to which energy and intelligence 
lend a kind of beauty. Grand ideas, deep 
sentiments, transfigured his countenance, his 
accent became graver, and then his head would 
assume a noble attitude. One may say, with- 



64 Thiers. 

out a paradox, that although his figure, his 
face, his bearing, his voice, were all unpromis- 
ing, none of them was an embarrassment to 
him even in the Tribune. 

Thiers became Minister of the Interior in 
the Cabinet of the nth of October, 1832, 
under the presidency of Marshal Soult, the 
Duke of Broglie being Minister of Foreign 
Affairs. A month later Thiers was selected 
to explain the policy of the Cabinet, and this 
new success seemed greater than the former. 
The speech began with one of those rapid 
summaries of the history of France since the 
French Revolution, — summaries which he was 
so often to repeat with such truth and variety 
that his hearers never wearied of them. Space 
fails wherein to cite even fragments, as also to 
enumerate and discuss the changes of minis- 
tries with which parliamentary governments 
are so often reproached, and which constitute 
one of their inevitable drawbacks. The enu- 
meration of them can be read in the histories 
of the epoch, and still better in the short pref- 
aces which M. Calmon has supplied to each of 
the speeches published by him. They form 
an excellent history and a convenient running 
commentary. This commentary and these 
speeches bear witness to the immense activity 
of a mind able to master and elucidate not only 



The July Government. 65 

questions of government, but those of finance, 
of war, of administration. Like the great 
English ministers, Walpole, Pitt, Robert Peel, 
Thiers could grapple with all subjects and 
could speak of business affairs as well as of 
. politics. In the treatment of every subject 
he exhibited the same attractive lucidity, the 
same solidity of discussion, all the marks of 
technical knowledge and thorough competence, 
without a trace of pedantry. 

His faults must also be mentioned, for the 
sake of completeness. His copiousness some- 
times runs over into prolixity, and his simple 
manner now and then borders upon vulgarity. 
His arguments are not always as strong as 
they seem plausible. _ He sometimes mistakes 
clearness for evidence, overstates his case, 
under-estimates the validity of objections. He 
takes too much satisfaction in instructing, but 
it must be admitted that he never fatigues. 
Like Voltaire, he has been accused of being 
superficial. Neither he nor Voltaire has much 
regard for ideas that cannot be popularized; 
that is, grasped by the unaided power of 
common-sense. Like Voltaire, also, he was 
little inclined to innovation, and when he erred 
it was never on the side of rashness. Strangely 
enough, his timidity in the matter of reform 
was most marked when he was in opposition. 
5 



66 Thiers. 

In power his boldness was greater, and in this 
his was truly an executive talent, for he did not 
dread responsibility. He would take a course 
that he would not have ventured theoretically 
to advise. 

In action he took his course boldly, pro- 
vided he had time to reflect, — for his mind, 
keen as it was, was a little slow in grasping 
new ideas. One might say that he was at 
once bold and timid, temporizing and urgent. 
In ordinary times the companions of his strug- 
gles complained of his delays, of his hesitation, 
of the difficulty of getting him to sacrifice his 
tastes or even his pleasures, of his repugnance 
to entering into combinations which he had 
not devised. But the moment he saw a politi- 
cal necessity, he gave up everything, — rest, 
health, work; his weariless activity begrudged 
nothing; and when his mind was made up, his 
somewhat solitary fashion of thinking and act- 
ing independently of others gave him singu- 
lar strength and confidence. He knew neither 
discouragement nor doubt. Thus if all his 
qualities had their reverse side, his faults had 
their good side. So it is with superior men ; 
and in describing such a man one is tempted 
to recall the scene in Moliere's " Bourgeois 
Gentilhomme," ^ wherein Covielle sets forth the 

1 Act iii. Scene 9. M. de R^musat makes some judicious 
omissions. — Tr. 



The yuly Government. 6"] 

defects of Lucile, while Cleonte, affecting to 
agree, suggests the corresponding merit : — 

" Covielle. To begin with, her eyes are small, 

Cleonte. Yes, it is true, but they are full of fire, the 
most sparkling, the most searching in the world. 

Covielle. As to her figure, she is not tall. 

Cleonte. No, but she is well shaped. 

Covielle. She affects a certain carelessness in her 
speech and actions. 

Clemte. True, but all that is becoming to her, and 
her manners are engaging, — they have an indescrib- 
able charm that fascinates the heart. 

Covielle. As to her inteUigence — 

Cleonte. Ah, Covielle ! her intelligence is most re- 
fined and delicate. 

Covielle. Her conversation — 

Cleonte. Her conversation is charming." 

This last applies even better than the rest to 
M. Thiers, whose conversation has been much 
praised. To tell the truth, it was not precisely 
a conversation, but rather a fluent monologue, 
full of sallies, anecdotes, historical parallels. 
It was very much like one of his speeches ; 
indeed it often was the speech itself, or a frag- 
ment of the speech, which he was about to 
pronounce. It exhibited the talent of com- 
position, one of the best gifts of the orator ; he 
would follow a logical deduction for a whole 
evening throughout interruptions of all kinds. 



68 Thiers. 

returning to it after the most unforeseen and 
the most prolonged digressions. Here, as in 
the House, he paid shght heed to objections, 
his own ideas appearing so clear to him that 
those of others remained a little obscure. He 
seemed not to hear them at the time ; but it 
was not unusual to see him return of his own 
accord to an idea which he had at first re- 
jected. He needed to wait until an idea, de- 
posited in his brain, had germinated in the 
particular form which his own ideas assumed. 
So his friends seldom interrupted him, and this 
not only out of deference, but because it was 
useless ; they found compensation in the charm 
of his facile, copious talk, full of fire without 
declamation, of unstudied grace, of unpretend- 
ing images. 

Thus it was, at least, in the last twenty years 
of his life; and M, Doudan tells us in one of 
his letters^ that we should have found him 
the same in early life. 

Paris, April lo, 1840. 

M. Thiers dined here on Monday. He talked of 
Africa with a vivacity that charmed Albert, among 
others, saying that it gives us the only instinct in the 
least disinterested or heroic that remains to our 
country ; pointing to the Atlas Mountains as a kind 

1 Melanges et lettres de M. Doudan, i. 307, 308. 



The yuly Government. 69 

of military school where all the officers of our army 
are inured to danger, to vigilance, to presence of 
mind; proving from all his military souvenirs that 
there can be no better soldiers than those who have 
served against the light-horse. He made us see the 
Arabs galloping down the African hillsides, and the 
unyielding French infantry scattering that mountain- 
storm with its regular fire. And then the memories 
of the Army of Egypt, the curved sabres and tur- 
bans of the Mamelukes, the names of Heliopolis and 
of the Pyramids, and the fray between the Roman 
Legion and the Numidian horsemen. M. d'Hau- 
bersart seemed not in the least moved by all this, and 
persisted, in spite of the Numidians, in spite of the 
days of Heliopolis and Tabor, in reckoning upon his 
fingers how many soldiers we had in Africa, how 
many we had lost within ten years by fever, how 
many on the road to Constantine and to Mascara. 
And M. Thiers, with a kind of Gallic frenzy, led 
against him all the invincible armies trained in Africa, 
with their beautiful tattered battle-flags waving in that 
dazzling sunshine, and all the noble company of 
heroes bred in war ; and still M. Duvergier insisted 
that it was a very expensive military school. . . . M. 
de Canouville listened in silence to all this tumult, 
and after the departure of the President of the 
Council he said to me : " It 's very odd ; I am not 
of his opinion, but this little man reminds me of the 
emperor's manner and vivacity of speech on the 
days when he was not quite reasonable." 



70 Thiers. 

Nothing could be more lifelike than this 
picture, except the last touch, which is evi- 
dently inserted for effect; for M. Doudan, a 
great enemy of the Empire, and M. de Canou- 
ville, formerly the emperor's quartermaster- 
general, knew very well what Napoleon was 
like when he was " not quite reasonable." 
Apropos of Algeria a characteristic anecdote 
used to be told. Its conquest dated back to 
the Restoration, and was completed after the 
Revolution of 1830. Of course there was a 
discussion whether we should not abandon it, 
as we are accustomed to do whenever a colony 
has been gained by dint of some hardship and 
heroism. The ministers decided that it must 
be retained. " It is a school of patience," re- 
marked M. Guizot. " It is a school of war," 
retorted M. Thiers. " At all events, it is a 
school," concluded M. de Broglie. 

As to the analogy between Thiers and the 
Emperor Napoleon, one can scarcely imagine 
any except their common vivacity, their sen- 
sitiveness to impressions and their power of 
forcibly rendering these impressions, their in- 
exhaustible, imaginative improvisation, their 
sometimes blind irritation against obstacles, — 
all characteristics of Voltaire also ; for it is by 
their defects that the spoiled children of genius 
and fortune resemble one another. Napoleon 



The July Government. 71 

had a certain conformity with Thiers in his 
way of looking at great social institutions, — 
the clergy, the university, administration, the 
courts, commerce. On all these points Thiers' 
manner of interpreting the Revolution differed 
little from that of the First Consul ; it was by 
an effort of mind and by his clear view of prac- 
tical needs that Thiers became a defender of 
a free press and of parliamentary govern- 
ment. To put it differently, he did not pre- 
cisely love freedom, — there is the analogy ; 
but he loved a free constitution, — there is the 
difference. 

But let us return to the eloquence of Thiers. 
He left little to the intelligence of his hearers, 
and did not fail to repeat his arguments and 
to explain by the card the origin and the his- 
tory of every question. This fault was so 
agreeably hit off in a famous novel of that time, 
that we must quote a page of it. Jerome 
Paturot, who has become a deputy, is telling 
his own story : ^ — 

"There was another orator of the first rank, and 
him I took as my model. I could not enough ad- 
mire his rapid rise. In order to conquer a great 
place in the House, he had had to contend against 

1 Jer6me Paturot a la recherche d'une position sociale, par 
Louis Reybaud. Paris, 18™°, 1842. 



72 Thiers. 

physical obstacles, — his voice, his stature, his insig- 
nificant appearance. The men of brilliant success in 
the Tribune had the advantage of him in these re- 
spects. He had overcome these difficulties by dex- 
terity of speech, by fertility of resources, by flexibility 
of talent. He was my idol, the master of my choice. 
Whenever he climbed the marble staircase of the Tri- 
bune, I pulled myself together, like one who is about 
to receive a lesson. I must do him the justice to say 
that he was not niggardly of his lessons ; he gave me 
all the time I needed to imbue myself with his man- 
ner and inspire myself with his method. What es- 
pecially pleased me in him was that he began with 
the rudiments of every question, which he did not 
leave until he had exhausted it. He always took it 
for granted — Heaven knows how justly ! — that the 
House was ignorant of the very alphabet of things ; this 
showed a profound study of the human heart. Thanks 
to him, I came within an ace of understanding the 
Eastern question ; one speech more, and I should 
have grasped the problem. Unhappily I stopped 
short with a four hours' lesson. This was too little ; 
but what I know of the subject I owe to the orator 
who was my star. Through his efforts I learned that 
there is upon the Bosphorus a city named Constanti- 
nople, where the Turks are in the majority. It will 
hardly be denied that this is a notion very essential 
to any lasting solution of the Eastern question. A 
few lessons more, and I should have learned some- 
thing about Egypt and Syria, countries famous in 
antiquity." 



The July Government. 'j-^ 

This method of teaching — of sacrificing 
everything to clearness, of impressing the 
hearer by sheer force of fact and argument, 
of holding the whole attention in order to 
convince — often impelled Thiers to assume 
the incorrect tone of conversation ; but what 
seems like negligence was sometimes an arti- 
fice. When he was not addressing the Jerome 
Paturots of his time, he could change his tone, 
and recollect that he was a great writer as well 
as a popular orator. On the 20th of June, 
1833, while still in office, he was elected a 
member of the French Academy. Out of 
twenty-five votes his competitor, Charles No- 
dier, obtained six, and there were two white 
balls. On the 13th of the following Decem- 
ber M. Thiers was received by M. Viennet. 
After having spoken with taste and measure 
of the youth and early works of Andrieux, 
whose place he took, and then of those pretty 
tales and comedies, which would now be 
thought a little insipid, the new academician 
took an opportunity to make the customary 
survey of the age in which his predecessor 
had lived : — 

" What times, what things, what men, between that 
memorable year 1789 and that no less memorable 
year 1830 ! The ancient French society of the 
eighteenth century, so refined but so ill-regulated, 



74 Thiers. 

ends amid a dreadful storm. A crown falls by vio- 
lence, dragging down the august head that wore it. 
Likewise, and without reprieve, fall the most precious 
and the most illustrious heads ; genius, youth, hero- 
ism are victims of the wrath of factions, embittered 
by all that is dehghtful to men. Out of this bloody 
chaos suddenly rises an extraordinary genius who 
seizes this society with his powerful hands, gives it 
stability, gives it glory, gives it civil equality, — the 
most pressing of its needs, — postpones the freedom 
which would have been but an embarrassment, and 
bears to all parts of the world the prevailing truths 
of the French Revolution. One day his tricolor 
banner flashes upon the heights of Mount Tabor, an- 
other day upon the Tagus, a last day upon the Borys- 
thenes. And then he falls, leaving the world full of 
his labors, the human mind full of his image. The 
most active of mortals goes to die of inaction upon 
an island of the great ocean ! 

" Such, gentlemen, are the grandeurs we have 
witnessed. Whatever be our age, many of us have 
seen a part, some of us have seen all. When, in 
our childhood, we were taught the annals of the 
world, they talked to us of the storms of the an- 
tique forum, of the proscriptions of Sulla, of the 
tragic death of Tully ; they repeated the stories of 
unhappy kings, of the misfortunes of Charles I., of 
the blindness of James II., of the prudence of Wil- 
liam III. ; they told us also of the genius of great 
captains, of Alexander, of Caesar, until, fascinated by 
the tale of their greatness, we wished that we might 



The July Government. 75 

have seen with our own eyes those potent and im- 
mortal men. 

" Gentlemen, our eyes have really seen, our hands 
have really touched, all these things and these men. 
We have seen as bloody a forum as that of Rome ; we 
have seen the heads of orators displayed from the 
Tribune whence they had spoken ; we have seen 
kings as unhappy as Charles I., more miserably bhnd 
than James II. j we behold every day the prudence 
of William ; and we have seen Csesar, Caesar himself ! 
Among you who hear me are men who have had the 
honor to approach him, to meet his flashing eye, to 
hear his voice, to receive orders from his mouth, and 
to fly to execute them amid the smoke of battle." 

M. Guizot, so long his rival, was elected the 
next year. Starting from very different points, 
and very different in their methods of reason- 
ing, these two thinkers had arrived at the same 
practical conclusion, — the engrafting of the 
English government upon French society. 
During the foundation period when this gov- 
ernment had to be defended from subversive 
attacks, their agreement was almost complete. 
Fatal consequences have been attributed to 
their later disunion, just as the causes of that 
disunion have been sought in a rivalry of tal- 
ents and influence, in a mean jealousy, in all 
those lower human sentiments to which they 
were strangers. Both of them were very early 



76 Thiers. 

convinced that they had no need to be jealous 
of any one.^ 

The greatest enemy of the July Government 
was M. Berryer. M. Thiers said of him that 
this definition of oratory should have been in- 
vented for his benefit, — " It is a body speaking 
to a body; " and added : " With my voice and 
figure I need truth on my side; I succeed 
only with truth, while Berryer is the orator of 
falsehood." At that time the saying was very 
just ; but later, under the Empire, M. Berryer 
showed that he also knew how to plead for the 
truth. He had the good fortune to end his 
days as member of an opposition which, ac- 
cording to M. Thiers, was right at all points, — 
a rare thing for oppositions, for governments, 
or for humanity. 

In the time of Louis Philippe the case was 
different, especially the case of M. Berryer, 
who was the spokesman of an opposition 
wrong at all points, since it was bound to be 
at once Legitimist and Liberal, to attack and 
insult not merely conspiracies, but the natural 
defence of an oppressed nation, and, in the 

1 A long quotation at this point, from a eulogy upon elo- 
quence, pronounced by the author's father on the occasion 
of the reception of Jules Favre to the French Academy, is 
spared the reader. There is mention in it of several orators, 
but of neither Thiers nor Guizot, though they seem to be 
referred to with discreet academical allusiveness. — Tr. 



The July Government. 77 

name of princes enthroned by foreign hands, 
to accuse of weakness abroad a government 
that had just raised the tricolor flag. More 
than once he drew upon himself a bitter re- 
sponse from Thiers, who on these occasions 
seemed to borrow weapons from his adversary. 
Any one who takes the trouble to read over 
his speeches of December 31, 1834, and of 
January 22, 1835, will find that Thiers knew 
how to forsake the tone of racy conversa- 
tion, and to rise to a more classical form 
of eloquence. For example, he said to the 
Royalists : — 

" Legitimacy ! What security did it give us ? Re- 
flect : it thrice permitted the legitimate throne to 
fall. Was Louis XVI. not legitimate? Was Louis 
XVIII. not legitimate? Was Charles X. not so? 
But a single breath of Revolution sufficed, in 1789, 
in 18 1 5, in 1830, to overthrow their legitimate throne. 
Such is the security that you promise us. What then 
is this power which thrice failed to save its own 
throne, letting it fall before the first popular breath ? 
If this is your boasted security, away with you ; for 
to have faith in it we had need forget the history of 
our own time. , . . Security you could not give, for 
you fell thrice ; clemency ? you shed blood and 
denied the prayers of mothers; dignity? you put 
yourselves into the keeping of strangers. How can 
you ask the country to expect anything from that 



'jS Thiers. 

principle of legitimacy which was able to assure it 
against no storm, which gave it neither security, nor 
clemency, nor dignity?" 

It is a pity to be forced to confine one's self 
to a few short quotations, since one of the 
beauties of his speeches is their simple and 
excellent arrangement. Enough has perhaps 
been quoted to show his ability to cope with 
M. Berryer, even when the latter had the 
choice of ground and weapons. And yet 
Berryer was the most perfectly gifted of men 
for that oratorical action which the ancients 
valued so highly. His open and expressive 
countenance, his broad chest, his powerful 
voice, his bearing at once noble and animated, 
that precious gift of remaining natural in the 
midst of declamation, of working up a passion 
without apparent art, of hiding a great deal of 
shrewdness under a frank exterior, made it 
impossible to forget him once one had heard 
him, even when he was enfeebled with age. 

The years when the Government of the 
House of Orleans had to defend itself only 
against revolutionists — Radicals as we say to- 
day, Carlists as they were then called — was 
not precisely a golden age, for blood too fre- 
quently flowed in the streets ; nevertheless, it 
was an era very honorable to the nation and 
to its chiefs. It was the easy moment of a 



The July Government. 79 

government, when it is still supported by all 
the forces that have created it, when the party of 
the past has not yet plucked up courage, and 
when what calls itself the party of the future 
has not yet begun to hope. On either hand 
there is a period of expectation, and it is then 
the duty of the founders to do all they can to 
confirm the freedom and the strength which 
they have gained. Then it is logical that di- 
vision should arise. Government is not an 
end in itself, but a means either of accomplish- 
ing reforms or simply of furthering the public 
weal ; and as soon as the Monarchy appeared 
settled, it was inevitable that the counter- 
currents of conservatism and liberalism should 
begin to flow. 

An incident contributed to delay this in- 
evitable moment. For reasons that cannot 
be given here, the king had been led, after 
various trials, to call M. Mole to the presi- 
dency of the Council,^ and to form the Minis- 
try of the 15 th of April, 1837, — a strange 
Ministry which satisfied nobody, in which sat 
none of " the princes of the Tribune, the grand 
vassals of representative government" (the 
expression is Sainte-Beuve's). Solely by rea- 
son of its origin and composition, this Cabi- 

1 Mole succeeded Thiers on the 6th of September, 1836. 
Guizot went into opposition on the 15th of April, 1837. — Tr. 



8o Thiers, 

net had formidable enemies. Under the rep- 
resentative system a ministry of this kind is 
reduced to impotence, and can have no higher 
ambition than merely to prolong its own exist- 
ence. This is, however, not enough ; and many 
people are found, especially outside of the min- 
istry, who fail to see the necessity for its exist- 
ence, and who make that existence difficult. 
Opposed from every side, M. Mole made it a 
point of honor to maintain himself in power. 
Not being a great speaker, he was obliged, in 
order to succeed, to endeavor to postpone 
the discussion of important questions ; to win 
if not to corrupt individuals ; to scatter discord 
in political parties ; in short, to bring to bear 
upon the Assembly the diplomacy of the con- 
clave. Such a course seriously detracts from 
the advantages of parliamentary government; 
and it was natural that those who were at- 
tached to this form of government should be 
dissatisfied, and that, separated as they were 
by shades of opinion, they should be drawn 
into union. Hence the Coalition. 

Nothing would have been more legitimate, 
had party chiefs not taken advantage of the 
situation to exaggerate their grievances, and 
had they preserved an attitude of sufficient 
moderation toward a government which they 
did not wish to overthrow, but simply to warn. 



The July Government. 8i 

This is a delicate art, wherein our parliamentary- 
leaders have often failed; their failure in it 
contributed to bring about the Revolution of 
1848. Our liberty was not, perhaps is not yet, 
the robust freedom of England. Parliamen- 
tary wranglers should not forget that they 
are before a public which may be tempted to 
treat them with no more consideration than 
they show for one another. This caution was 
especially important in the time of restricted 
suffrage. Notwithstanding all the respect in- 
spired by the name of Guizot, it must be ad- 
mitted that in this struggle he was the hottest 
and the most abusive. He has expressed his 
regrets for this in a page of his Memoirs.^ 

Thiers did not at once associate himself with 
the Coalition, of which Guizot was the head. 
Either through a sentiment of moderation, or 
because he felt that the opinions of Minister 
Mole were little more at variance with his own 
than those of Guizot were coming to be, he 
for some time refrained from any attack upon 
the Ministry. In January, 1839, however, 
when the Address was up for discussion, he 
rose like the rest to enumerate his grievances 
against M. Mole ; and it must be admitted that 
Thiers had only too good reason to reproach 
the Minister with his timidity, his inaction 

1 Memoires pour servir a I'histoire de mon temps, iv. 287. 
6 



82 Thiers. 

through fear of taking any risks, his exclusive 
concern for material interests, and with his for- 
eign policy, which led him to abandon Spain, 
to neglect England, and to evacuate Ancona. 

It is certain that this debate was a serious 
blow to parliamentary government. As at the 
end of the first act of Victor Hugo's drama 
the lords successively reproach Lucrezia Bor- 
gia with all her crimes, so here each party 
chief, Guizot, Thiers, Berryer, Barrot, one after 
another ascended the Tribune to enumerate, 
with evident exaggeration, the faults of the 
Government. The public took them at their 
word, and passed judgment, at once severely 
and unjustly, upon the regime and upon the 
king himself, whom they had imprudently ex- 
posed. Minister Mole's opinions could not be 
popular, but he sustained the unequal struggle 
with so much grace and dignity that people 
took pity upon him, and a certain discredit fell 
upon the alliance of men of talent who so 
bitterly attacked him. Guizot had closed one 
of his speeches by applying to courtiers this 
phrase of Tacitus : Omnia serviliter pro donii- 
natione. M. Mole immediately began his reply 
with the words : " Tacitus said that not of 
courtiers but of the ambitious." And even in 
the House the success was with the Minister. 

Ambitious! Was Thiers ambitious? It is 



The yuly Government. 83 

an insult to a public man to say that he is not 
so in a certain degree ; it implies that he has 
too little confidence in his ideas to desire to 
apply them. Thiers certainly wished to real- 
ize his ideas, nor did he distrust his own ade- 
quacy to the task. But he did not love power 
for itself, nor even for the pleasure of com- 
manding, nor yet for the importance that it 
confers. With little eagerness for advancement, 
jealous of his freedom and of his leisure, he 
often desired power in order to act; but he 
could not keep it long, precisely because 
he wielded it to some purpose. He loved 
only his favorite pursuits, and often took a dis- 
like to affairs for which he felt no special in- 
clination. Even as President of the Republic 
he was very sincere in his willingness to resign, 
and very eager to regain the freedom of his 
time and of his tastes. 

In these somewhat tumultuous debates of 
1839, Thiers took his permanent stand as the 
defender of all progress compatible with the 
July Government, while Guizot became the un- 
disputed leader of the timorous conservatives. 
Henceforward there were in France Whigs and 
Tories ready to contend for influence, if not 
for the ministry. At bottom, the difference 
was not very great, and need not be so. Both 
were Liberals, devoted to the Monarchy of 



84 Thiers. 

1830; but while the one endeavored to con- 
ciliate those whom the late Revolution had 
offended, the other undertook to satisfy and to 
unite the deputies and the electors who were 
more exacting in the matters of democracy 
and reform. Not that Guizot was absolutely 
hostile to reforms ; his superior mind admitted, 
understood them all ; but he believed that they 
could be carried out by none except conser- 
vatives. All his speeches during those eigh- 
teen years are eloquent variations of this theme. 
He lauded repose, wealth, peace, timidity in 
everything, confidence in governmental initia- 
tive. He showed extreme art in concealing 
the background of distrust, fear, scepticism, 
which disfigured this policy. He said one day 
that M. Odilon Barrot displayed great talent 
in " putting breeches \culottes\ upon opinions 
that wanted them; " it might have been said 
of Guizot that he was accustomed to drape 
with the toga opinions which had only a 
citizen's costume. 

Thiers' repugnance to novelties was so well 
known that he has been taxed with under- 
valuing the usefulness of railways. The ac- 
cusation is quite baseless ; notwithstanding 
some things which he let drop in conversation, 
it was in fact during his ministry that the 
first railroad bills were passed. In foreign 



The yuly Government. 85 

politics, in electoral reform, in everything, he 
was more inclined to a bold policy than Guizot. 
Thiers thought, in flat opposition to his rival, 
that a conservative policy should be carried 
out by Liberals, and that men of the most 
advanced opinions should be intrusted with 
power. The separation of the two policies 
and of the two men was brought about by the 
Cabinet of the ist of March, 1840. The for- 
mation of this Ministry was a difficult task, 
for Thiers found himself at the mercy of a 
disaffected conservative party, and of a dis- 
satisfied liberal party. It was, however, with 
reference to Eastern affairs rather than to 
domestic policy that the dissent betrayed itself. 
The question was not one of choice between 
war and peace, but of judging how far bold- 
ness might go without becoming rashness. 
Thiers was Minister of Foreign Affairs, and 
Guizot his Ambassador to England. The 
latter, like the king and the Chamber, deemed 
the game too hazardous. It may have been 
so ; if fifty years ago the question was hard 
to answer, how much more difficult would it 
be to-day ! What sacrifices could Europe be 
asked to make? To what extent could a mon- 
archy improvised by a popular insurrection 
impose its will? The Crimean War proved 
that Russia was not invincible, and this glorious 



86 Thiers. 

war was fought by the army of the Monarchy, 
— the army organized by the generals in 
Africa and by the princes of Orleans, who 
must not be forgotten when we speak of the 
good that was done between 1830 and 1848. 
But the condition of Europe was less alarming 
in 1855 than in 1840, and the war which suc- 
ceeded at the later date, though without great 
advantage to France, might have failed had it 
been undertaken sooner. It was this question 
that brought about the fall of Thiers and the 
formation of the Guizot Ministry (October 29, 
1840), which was to lead from the Monarchy 
to the Republic. 

Thiers and his friends were thrown into an 
opposition which was certainly not a factious 
one. Their criticisms, rarely bitter, were soft- 
ened by the sincerest declarations of respect 
for the Constitution. Their speeches are 
models of constitutional opposition, though 
it may be difficult to believe this, so frankly 
revolutionary have opposition parties calling 
themselves moderate since become. As to 
the numerous points at issue between the Op- 
position and the Government, it would be 
irksome to recount them. But there were 
two questions which this constitutional Oppo- 
sition had especially at heart, and which drew 
from the National Guard the cry, "Vive la r6- 



The July Government. 87 

forme ! " — a cry so far from being revolution- 
ary that it is the safeguard of free governments 
when they listen to it in time. 

The reform in question comprised two modi- 
fications of the state of things brought about 
by the Revolution of 1830, — the extension of 
the suffrage, and the diminution of the number 
of office-holders in the Chamber of Deputies. 
In 1830 the amount of the assessment that 
every citizen had to pay in order to exercise 
the right of suffrage had been reduced. In 
view of the spread of education and intelligence 
its further reduction now became natural and 
necessary. A still simpler method of extend- 
ing the foundations of our free institutions ap- 
peared in the proposal to convert the exercise 
of one of the liberal professions into an elec- 
toral qualification. Strangely enough, under 
a government claiming to be in the hands of 
the middle class {la bourgeoisie), neither law- 
yers nor physicians, the very flower of the 
French middle class, were admitted to the 
suffrage. To accede to such a proposition 
would seem an easy and an honorable way to 
satisfy an opposition party. Yet in resistance 
to this, Minister Guizot delivered one of his 
most admirable speeches (March 26, 1847), 
insisting upon the deep gulf that separates 
intelligence and capacity. 



88 Thiers. 

The effect of parliamentary reform, the 
grounds for which seemed peremptory, would 
have been equally prompt. It was proposed, 
not to forbid every office-holder to be a deputy, 
but to limit the number of office-holders in 
the Chamber, of which a clear majority were 
Councillors of State, Attorneys of the king, 
Justices of the Royal Court. Here was a man- 
ifest abuse, an official tie that appeared to 
diminish the authority of the votes of the 
Chamber. Independence of fortune or position 
does not, indeed, guarantee men from all weak- 
ness. An anecdote was in those days current 
of the reply made by a very rich lord to a poor 
deputy who had reproached him with some 
compliant vote : " It is very easy for you to 
quarrel with the Administration; but suppose, 
like myself, you had ten thousand acres of 
woodland!" When, in 1863, Thiers entered 
the Corps L6gislatif, Guizot remarked to much 
the same effect : " Ah ! M. Thiers used to 
complain of a Chamber of office-holders ; he 
will now find out what it is to deal with a 
Chamber of proprietors." But under the Em- 
pire, the manner in which the deputies were 
elected was the regrettable thing, and the im- 
perial Corps Legislatif can be compared to no 
other parliamentary body. It defies compari- 
son ! For all that, the composition of the 



The yuly Governntent. 89 

Chamber furnished a pretext for pointing out 
the abuses of parHamentary government, and 
it is difficult to cry out upon the abuses of a 
thing without somewhat discrediting the thing 
itself. In avoiding this last difficulty, however, 
Thiers and his friends displayed admirable 
talent, and a moderation that would be dis- 
puted only by the blindest adversaries ; and 
M. Odilon Barrot maintained a similar attitude. 
The reforms then urged by the extreme Left 
were of a narrower compass than the liberties 
of Englishmen, and did not go beyond what 
had been taught by the publicists of the Res- 
toration period. Harmony was really, there- 
fore, no impossible thing between the liberal 
leaders of a conservative party and so conser- 
vative an opposition. 

Perhaps the foregoing remarks sufficiently 
explain why this harmony was not brought 
about. Another reason worthy of note seems 
to have escaped attention. The conservative 
leaders, M. Guizot, M. Duchatel, M. Vitet, 
were a hundred-fold more disposed to con- 
cession than their party; and to grant what was 
asked for would have necessitated on their 
part an effiDrt as difficult and as meritorious as 
that which Sir Robert Peel was making at 
about the same time in England. They were 
not mistaken in thinking that a part of the 



go Thiers. 

Chambers, and even of the country, was grow- 
ing alienated from the purely liberal spirit in 
which the Revolution had been carried out 
and the government founded. Peace and the 
accompanying growth in wealth, which was 
favored by wise laws and an enlightened ad- 
ministration, left to a considerable fraction of 
the middle class no interests save purely ma- 
terial ones. Doubts, suspicions, fears of all 
kinds, were gradually taking possession of the 
reactionary party, and this party pushed the 
Government toward timidity and distrust of 
reform, — toward the side, to quote Guizot's 
own words, "on which governments fall." At 
a time when it was necessary to be enterpris- 
ing and bold, to counteract both the turbulent 
agitation of hostile parties and the apathy of 
friends by means of a fruitful activity, the 
Ministry seemed disposed to set up a half- 
hearted prudence as a political theory. They 
retreated even from the positions they had 
taken. A law concerning secondary instruc- 
tion defended by Messrs. de Broglie, Cousin, 
Villemain, and Guizot, had been passed in 
1844 by the Chamber of Peers. An excellent 
report upon it was laid before the Chamber of 
Deputies by Thiers. But the Ministry dared 
not accept its discussion, for the reason that 
it was too favorable to the University, too un- 



The July Government. 91 

clerical. Not that alone : the University, whose 
members were and are the best supports of 
freedom and the rule of reason, was oppressed 
and humbled. It was thought thus to win over 
the clergy and the Legitimists, This weak- 
ness did not prevent them from illuminating 
their Faubourg St. Germain on the evening of 
the 24th of February, 1848, nor did it make 
M. de Montalembert one whit the less implaca- 
ble in his war upon the Government.^ 

Finally, in the elections between the years 
1842 and 1845, the composition of the major- 
ity of the Chamber was considerably modified 
and by no means improved. New deputies 
appeared, whom it must have been surprising 
to find among the supporters of a government 
the chief defect of which was that, by reason 
of its origin and the character of its founders, 
it was too prone to treat men as pure intelli- 
gences. In order to appreciate this, we must 
return to the literature of the period. As we 
have seen, literature had exhibited an impas- 
sioned hostility to this government by men of 
letters. Nor is this all : a famous author en- 
dowed with a creative faculty whose power has 
perhaps never been equalled, being out of con- 
ceit with the virtuous political society of his 

1 An invective quoted from Montalembert is here omit- 
ted. — Tr. 



92 Thiers. 

time, conceived the plan of creating a society 
to his own taste, if not in his own image. 
With marvellous relief, reality, and life, he 
painted a fantastic world filled with all sorts of 
people, whose sole thought is to give them- 
selves the greatest sum of pleasures, of amours, 
and of money, and who employ to these 
ends all the resources and all the facilities of 
power. This imaginary world stood in no re- 
lation to the living world. The heroes of Bal- 
zac were very different men from the publi- 
cists, the historians, the orators, who discussed 
in the Assembly and disputed the power from 
1830 — or even from 181 5 — to 1848. In 
order to find politicians like Balzac's we should 
be obliged to go back to the time of Louis XV., 
and to Louis XV. himself, — for even his min- 
isters had opinions, and for them pleasures 
were the privilege of power, not its aim. 
These novels were nevertheless so fascinating, 
the author's talent, realistic in everything save 
the general conception, was so superior, the 
public mind was so perverted, that people 
were found who took this imaginary society 
as their model. Literature was no longer the 
portraiture of society, but society began to 
pattern after the fictions of literature. Then it 
was that there arose in the Chamber a race of 
young, audacious men for whom politics was 



The July Government. 93 

merely another field for jobbery, for gambling, 
or for amusement. Fortunately none of them 
attained to power under the July Monarchy; 
their hopes were not to be fulfilled until some 
years afterward. But this mock aristocracy, 
this foam upon the surface of the middle class, 
— an aristocracy which, according to a saying 
of the time, " had not, like the ancient nobility, 
conquered the Gauls, had not, like the impe- 
rial nobility, conquered Europe," which, bor- 
rowing from the society of the past the spirit 
of frivolity, and from modern society the spirit 
of calculation, entered upon politics not to 
acquire seriousness but to win the delights of 
sensuality and of vanity, — contributed to give 
to the final years of the Orleans Monarchy the 
unfortunate character that its enemies would 
attribute to the whole regime. Needless to say, 
men of this species have no place in the liberal 
ranks. They are the forlorn hope of the con- 
servative party. 

This has taken us very far from Thiers, who 
did not read Balzac, and was totally unlike 
Maxime de Trailles. His taste inclined him 
to give no heed to the unjust accusations 
against the majority, which were incessantly 
repeated. He had himself been so often slan- 
dered that he was loath to believe anything of 
this kind. He confined himself to the policy 



94 Thiers, 

of defending the principles of 1830 in speeches 
on the University, the Jesuits, the Budget, and 
on the subject of reform. Do these speeches 
show an unfaiHng grasp of the situation ? Cer- 
tainly his opinions, had they been carried out, 
would have given a new lease of life to the 
Monarchy. But he seems to have been blind 
to an obscure movement of the time, an anx- 
ious, vague expectancy, a confused but widely 
penetrative feeling that political reforms were 
of less importance than a social revolution. 
He did not, however, carry this illusory confi- 
dence so far as M. de Barante, who wrote, in 
the Address to the king from the Chamber of 
Peers, thirty days before the catastrophe : 

" Opinions subversive of social order and detes- 
table souvenirs have agitated rather than perturbed the 
public mind. Such agitations are powerless against 
the social order. Yes, Sire, the union of the great 
powers of the State, the action of law and of public 
reason, will suffice to preserve the re^DOse of the 
country." 

Nor would he have written as did Guizot to 
Prince Metternich (May 18, 1847) : — 

" France is now favorable to the policy of conser- 
vation. She has long since reached her goal and 
taken her footing. Many oscillations yet, but weaker 
and shorter, like those of a pendulum swinging to a 
halt. No profound and turbulent fermentation with 



llie yuly Government. 95 

respect either to home or to foreign affairs. There 
are at present two counter-currents in France, — one 
at the surface, and apparently still revolutionary; 
the other below, and in reality strongly conservative. 
The deeper current will prevail." 

But although they had too much confidence 
in the solidity of the Monarchy, neither Thiers 
nor his friends would have anything to do with 
the campaign of banquets. This well-known 
movement was to reveal the rash imprudence 
of some, the no less imprudent confidence of 
others, and the brittleness of the Constitution. 
Toward the close of the year 1847 the Ministry 
had declared that the meetings, or banquets, 
held by the candidates were illegal, and that 
they could be interfered with, even when held 
in a private house. Nothing would have been 
easier than to reduce the dispute to the dimen- 
sions of an interpellation, and to leave the de- 
cision to the Chamber. Instead of this, the 
Government hit upon the device of proposing 
an opposition banquet at Paris, — the same 
Paris where no review of the National Guard 
had been ventured for seven years. This ban- 
quet was to be broken up by a police ofiEicer, 
and the matter was to be carried before the 
courts. Few governments could with impu- 
nity assume such a risk at such a time. Had 



96 Thiers. 

the proposal emanated from the Opposition, it 
would have looked like a trap. But no ! The 
Opposition, even the Republican wing led by 
M. Odilon Barrot, lent themselves to the scheme 
with repugnance. 

To this scheme Thiers was frankly hostile. 
Although rather irritated than alarmed, he 
thought such a demonstration would be use- 
less to the cause of reform, and that it would 
present a favorable opportunity for insurrec- 
tion, or at least for disturbances. The Govern- 
ment, even if not shaken, would then have a 
pretext for an energetic appeal to the solici- 
tude of conservatives. Such is the attitude of 
the moderate party on occasions of this kind : 
it is to overshoot the mark, to permit one's 
attacks upon a government to arouse the fears 
of the friends of the social order. Abuses of 
freedom have done less harm by stimulating 
the audacity of extremists than by exciting the 
dread of the indifferent. 

Thiers' apprehension was much increased by 
a secret incident of which he latterly some- 
times spoke. He often received anonymous 
letters, especially from an unknown corre- 
spondent whose advice had always seemed 
to him judicious. On the 2ist or 22d of 
February, 1848, he found, on his return to 
his house, a long and able letter from this 



The July Governme^it. 97 

correspondent, reproaching him with his care- 
less confidence, his inactivity. The situation 
was graver than he thought; we were near- 
ing the crisis of a great democratic movement 
to which he ought to ally himself; he would 
do better to commit himself, to compromise 
himself a little, were it only for the purpose 
of moderating and guiding the movement, of 
making it more innocent and more useful; 
he was losing time in the gratification of his 
artistic and social tastes, and was limiting his 
political activity to mere conversations with 
Remusat,^ that ermine who, for fear of soiling 
his fine robes, would meddle with nothing. 
This letter impressed Thiers, and he remarked 
that very evening to the man whom he was 
reproached with listening to, " It may be that 
we must resign ourselves, every fifteen years, 
to see democracy make some great forward 
stride." Nevertheless, he was inclined to re- 
gard the demonstration then in preparation as 
too insignificant to be dangerous. This was 
his disposition with respect to affairs in which 
he took no part. " Take care," he had said 
to some of the ringleaders, " if you miss the 
chance to make yourselves odious, not to miss 
the chance to make yourselves ridiculous." 

1 Fran9ois Marie Charles, Comte de Remusat (1797-1875), 
father of Paul. — Tr. 



98 Thiers. 

He, however, warned the Ministers, but they 
thought that the demonstration would be a 
pitiful failure, that the masses would take no 
interest in it, and that the Opposition would 
be weakened by it. 

Those who favored the movement persisted 
in expecting a demonstration which, without 
seriously disturbing the peace, should exhibit 
the state of public opinion in so formidable a 
way that the Ministry would be forced to retire. 
The Ministry indeed fell, and the Monarchy 
with it. Thiers, who was summoned only the 
night before the king's flight, had not time to 
take a single measure or to sign an order; the 
decree making him Minister was not even 
written. He had hardly time to advise the 
king to leave Paris without abdicating, and to 
await the event at a distance at the head of 
faithful troops. But it was too late to carry 
out or even to discuss the plan which, twenty- 
three years later, was to save the Republic. 
Thiers could only witness, with a sinking 
heart, the flight of the king whom he had 
served, a democratic Revolution which he 
had done everything to avert, and the rise 
of a new power that was more than all else 
to transform the conditions of government in 
France, — universal sufl"rage. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE REPUBLIC OF 1 848. 

THE moralist is bound to think that the 
February Revolution lacked two things : 
a great cause and a sufficient grievance. When 
force is the only recourse against injustice, 
when the weight of the complaints equals the 
gravity of the enterprise, not only revolution 
but sometimes murderous conspiracy is ab- 
solved by history. It does not appear that the 
present case is one of those which justify an 
act blamable in itself. The July Monarchy, 
if not " the best of republics," was neverthe- 
less really a very habitable republic, moderate, 
open to reform, and capable of being made 
more liberal and more democratic every day. 
It was to the public interest that progress 
should go forward slowly, and that we should 
not pass at a bound from a too restricted elec- 
toral body to a nation of voters. The Republic, 
based upon universal suffrage and so soon to be 
threatened by it, arose among a people poorly 
prepared for self-government, and greatly sur- 



lOO Thiers. 

prised by what had been forced upon them by 
the Parisians. This restless population of Paris, 
always ready for the fiery defence of an idea 
or of a man, without scrutinizing too closely 
the value and the seriousness of the idea or of 
the man, had also been somewhat surprised by 
this easy victory. The obscure but real social- 
ist movement was scarcely apparent outside 
the circle of secret societies and professional 
revolutionists. Very few deputies, perhaps 
few ministers, had read the works of Fourier, 
of Saint-Simon, of Considerant, which dis- 
turbed the imaginations of the simple at a 
time when more positive minds were inflamed 
by Lamartine's " Girondins." 

The fundamental opinions of Thiers and his 
friends were such that they could hardly have 
had any absolute repugnance for the Repub- 
lic. What they had desired from their youth 
up was a balanced government, wherein the 
casting weight should belong to the nation. 
They could not believe with the extreme Right 
that the Republic meant universal ruin, nor 
with the extreme Left that monarchy could 
exist only by the humiliation of the masses. 
The Duke of Broglie, M. Duvergier de Hau- 
ranne, and many others, have often declared 
that liberal France may choose between a re- 
public which borders upon constitutional mon- 



The Republic of 184.8. loi 

archy, and a monarchy which is a repubhc in 
everything but name. Pohtical liberty, that is, 
the participation of the people in their own 
government, is better subserved by a republic 
than by legitimate monarchy. In one of his 
last speeches in the Chamber (February 2, 
1848), Thiers had gone even beyond these 
principles : — 

" I am no Radical, gentlemen ; the Radicals know 
this very well, — one has but to read their journals 
to be convinced. But understand me well : I am of 
the party of the Revolution, both in France and in 
Europe. I wish the government of the Revolution 
to remain in the hands of moderate men, and shall 
do what in me lies to keep it in such hands. But 
even if this government passes into the hands of men 
less moderate than myself and my friends, into the 
hands of passionate men, even of the Radicals them- 
selves, I shall not on this account abandon the cause ; 
I shall always belong to the party of the Revolution." 

These sentiments were shared by the ma- 
jority of the men who had labored to establish 
the July Government. They objected to the 
Republic merely because they perceived the 
difficulty of making it permanent; indeed, their 
absolute want of faith in the conventional 
traditions upon which are based the majesty 
and the very existence of monarchy inclined 
them to accept the Republic. Such was the 



I02 Thiers. 

feeling of moderate Opposition deputies like 
M. Dufaure and M. de Tocqueville. The latter, 
having studied democratic government in the 
only country where it existed, had early broken 
with the Legitimate Monarchy to which his 
family was attached, and had at no time shown 
any confidence in the July Monarchy. 

But Thiers was no mere theorist ; he was 
also a man of feeling and a statesman. His 
conduct was rarely guided by absolute prin- 
ciples ; the affections and personal impressions 
always materially influenced his decisions. 
How could he witness without emotion the 
flight of the king whom he had loved? How 
could he help regretting the Monarchy which 
he had created in his mind, founded with his 
own hands, what though it had perished for 
not heeding his counsels? Had he not de- 
fended this Government as the only safeguard 
against the return of the heirs of Charles X., 
and against the dangerous dreamers who 
wished to go beyond the revolutionary mon- 
archy? He had always advocated a middle 
government, that should satisfy not only what 
Guizot called the " governing classes," not 
only what Odilon Barrot called " the people," 
but the nation ; and in explaining these words 
to the Chamber of Deputies one day, Thiers 
produced at once an article for a dictionary of 



The Republic of 184.8. 103 

politics and a profession of faith. Berard, in 
his " Course in Physiology," explains that 
between muscular inertia and violent contrac- 
tion there is a peculiar muscular state which 
he calls the force of "fixed situation." This 
force was displayed by Milo of Crotona when 
he pressed a pomegranate in his palm, so 
gently as not to crush it, yet so powerfully that 
no one could force his hand open. Thiers' 
opinions show some analogy with this force 
exerted to preserve. In 1848 the pomegranate 
was not crushed, but the protection invented 
by doctrinaires for freedom and society was 
injured. The hand had been violently opened, 
and the delicate fruits of civilization were en- 
dangered. Thiers, as a politician, was never 
insensible to the spectacle of force ; perhaps 
he was somewhat over-impressed by it, and his 
first impulse would be either to take possession 
of it or to resist it. This latter impulse first 
seized him upon the advent of universal suf- 
frage, and controlled his conduct throughout 
the following years. 

The first care of all good citizens was the 
maintenance of peace. To those who under 
the Monarchy had dreaded the cruel extremity 
of war, it seemed that a democratic revolution 
must revive the fears, excite the wrath, and 
rally the forces of all the absolutist parties in 



I04 Thiers. 

Europe. The Provisional Government and all 
serious politicians were haunted by spectral 
coalitions. This fear of war had the good 
effect of rallying military men round the 
banner of a Revolution which they disliked, 
because it had been for them a kind of de- 
feat. Happily these apprehensions were not 
to be realized, and justice must be done to M. 
de Lamartine. Between lyric democracy and 
monarchy done into heroics, there was no 
room in his soul for the epic; military glory 
found him very disdainful. 

But there were solider pledges of peace. 
Liberal England had her grievances against 
the Guizot Ministry, and hastened to give the 
Republic the benefit of the principle of non- 
intervention. The Emperor of Russia was too 
great a partisan of the Old Regime to anathe- 
matize a revolution that had dethroned a 
usurper and had exiled the worst enemies of 
legitimate monarchy. There was every indi- 
cation that he would be more indulgent to 
the Republic than he had been to the Orleans 
Government. The Pope had been compelled 
to promise the Romans a constitution. There 
was an insurrection at Milan, a victorious up- 
rising at Berlin, the Republic was proclaimed at 
Venice, and Metternich, the inveterate enemy 
of the House of Orleans and of France, had 



The Republic of 184.8. 105 

fled to cover. Peace was assured, and with 
a little more boldness and presence of mind 
the Provisional Government might have turned 
the situation to better account. The February 
revolution, by heartening the peoples and dis- 
heartening the kings, had totally changed the 
European status. 

Reassured on this head, Thiers resolved to 
devote himself to the rescue of the nation from 
social perils. This he could do only by enter- 
ing the Legislative Assembly, which was to 
be elected on the 19th of April. He was not 
sanguine with respect to this future Assembly, 
and was disposed to think that he would 
be relegated to a Girondin minority destitute 
either of influence or of authority. He drew 
this inference from the general state of men's 
minds, from the course of the Government, 
from that perversion of reason often produced 
by revolutions in those who make them, as 
well as in those who suffer them. Thiers had 
at first refused a candidature at Marseilles, the 
success of which appeared equally improbable 
and undesirable ; afterward he consented, and 
here is the letter he wrote to a friend : — 

Paris, March 3, 1848. 
I had hoped for a while that my electors of 
Bouches-du-Rhone would relieve me from standing. 
I counted upon the clergy to reject me. I am but 



io6 Thiers. 

half reassured, and I still fear to be elected, notwith- 
standing my circular, which has had, I freely confess 
to you, a very great effect. No speech of mine has 
been so favorably received. 

I am very, sorry that I did not refuse the seat from 
the outset. I take a dark view of things. For this 
I have good reasons, too long to relate. I am dis- 
gusted with things without exception, with men with 
very few exceptions, and I dream only of a lodging 
in a little house at Rome. Should I be fortunate 
enough to escape election in Bouches-du-Rhone, my 
mind is made up ; I shall renounce the living world, 
and pass the remnant of my life in a corner, laboring 
— at what ? At the history of the world, which has 
been my dream from childhood. I shall not write it, 
but I shall have the pleasure of studying it. Thus 
I shall have more men to include in my sweeping 
judgment. Verily there must be something behind 
the screen whereon the events of this world are 
painted ; otherwise the mockery would be too great. 
They say freedom is triumphant to-day, and here we 
are almost proscribed for having defended our Gov- 
ernment against itself. Such is justice ! ' 

M. Thiers failed without regret at the gen- 
eral election, but he did not carry out his 
plan of retirement. Both he and the electors 
changed their minds, and on the 8th of June he 
offered himself to five constituencies at once. 
He w^as returned everywhere, even from Paris, 
where he was placed upon an oddly matched 



The Republic of 184.8. 107 

ticket alongside of General Changarnier, and 
of Messrs. Victor Hugo, Pierre Leroux, 
Caussidiere, and Louis Bonaparte. 

As he was walking to the Chamber for the 
first time, one of the loungers of the Place de 
la Concorde accosted him, as is usual on such 
occasions, with, " Whatever you do, don't give 
us America ! " To which Thiers made the 
sensible retort : " If you won't have North 
America, mind you don't get South America !" 
It is between these two Americas that France 
had, and still has, to choose. 

Thiers got himself put on the Finance Com- 
mittee, where there seemed likely to be less 
prejudice against his advice than in the purely 
political committees. The elections had turned 
in favor of moderate counsels, and the Constitu- 
ent Assembly was very prudent. Perhaps he 
saw the danger too exclusively on the financial 
and economical side. He and his friends re- 
proached the last ministers of the Monarchy 
for having had eyes only for the reactionary 
movement, and they themselves suffered an 
opposite illusion of the same kind. The 
events of February made the hitherto some- 
what limited reaction much more marked, and, 
so long as political rights were not imperilled, 
Thiers favored it. Until the practical demon- 
stration of this peril by the conspiracies of 



io8 Thiers. 

Prince Louis Bonaparte in 1851, Thiers re- 
mained the most impassioned of Conserva- 
tives, taking this much abused word in its 
best sense. 

One of his great services to this cause was 
his "Defence of Property," ^ pubHshed in Sep- 
tember, 1848. The book is amusing, clear, 
copious, a bit superficial, and the only very 
original thing about it is the author. The 
reader is constantly drawn on by the attrac- 
tion of a strong and lively individuality. How 
is it possible to reflect that the ideas are not 
very new when they are so evidently new to 
the writer, who sets them forth by the unbor- 
rowed light of his own mind ? He has the con- 
viction of a man who has been at the pains to 
discover his ideas, and who makes even com- 
monplaces his own. He does not dream of 
inquiring into the metaphysical principle of 
the right of property ; yet it does not appear 
that the more technical philosophers who 
plume themselves upon their rigorous accu- 
racy have ever seen in it anything more than 
a consequence of human freedom, or rather 
freedom itself in one of its forms, — in short, a 
necessity of civilized society. Is this not solid 
ground upon which to base a right? Thiers 
develops this thought in his usual spirited 
1 De la Propriete, par A. Thiers, 8^°, Paris, 1848. 



The Republic of 184.8. 109 

way, dwelling upon . nothing which is not 
accessible to mere common-sense. His own 
common-sense was a keenly whetted instru- 
ment, a weapon most effective against dan- 
gerous Utopias. In a speech of the 6th of 
May, 1834, he had said of it: — 

" A statesman should be possessed of good sense, 
a primary political quality ; and its fortunate possessor 
needs a second quality, — the courage to show that 
he has it. What I am saying is widely applicable to 
the times in which we live. People of good sense 
are not lacking ; the quality is not so rare, since it 
goes by the name of common sense. What we lack, 
is men who dare prove their possession of it." 

This courage and good sense were never less 
lacking to Thiers than on the occasion when he 
refuted Socialistic theories by the report of a 
committee appointed to examine Proudhon's 
propositions concerning the reorganization 
of taxation, public credit, mortgage loans, 
paper money, and the right to labor.^ Here 
Thiers shows his mastery of that attractive 
and convincing method, in which he has 
never beeil excelled, of bringing practical 
truths home to the minds of an Assembly 
always prone to inattention. It is well known 
how easily he triumphed over his antagonist 

1 Report of July 26, Speeches of August 2, September 
13, October 10, 1848. 



no Thiers. 

in a Chamber which had been elected under 
the influence of the February gale. M. Proud- 
hon, who seems to have been neither a thought- 
ful seeker after truth nor an inflexible sectary, 
but rather a writer for effect, a retailer of para- 
doxes, found but one person (M. Greppo) to 
share his defeat. 

The slight support which the enemies of 
society found in the Republican Assembly, 
and the less easy victory of General Cavaignac 
over the bloody Insurrection of June, 1848, 
ought to have convinced the public that the 
greatest danger was over, and that our dis- 
ease was not so desperate as to warrant a des- 
perate cure. But, as has happened more than 
once in human history, the peril averted by 
the eloquence of some and by the heroism of 
others began to appear greater, once it had 
been encountered. Memory seems to be more 
timid than Imagination. After having victo- 
riously defended itself, society began to look 
about for a savior. Moreover, the name of 
Bonaparte had come up at the May elections 
(1848), and throughout the first half of the 
century that name retained a magical power. 
When it was spoken, the nation seemed unable 
to listen to reason. What a series of misfor- 
tunes and mistakes have been required in order 
to break its spell ! Prince Louis Bonaparte, 



The Republic of 184.8. 1 1 1 

elected in several departments, gave and took 
back his resignation several times, got himself 
re-elected by the most various constituencies, 
surrounded himself with several outcasts from 
fortune and from politics, succeeded in inspir- 
ing so much faith in his duplicity that no- 
body believed his Republican protestations, — 
played, in short, the part of a pretender. He 
became the most serious rival of General Ca- 
vaignac, whose candidacy seemed to be pro- 
claimed by events, and whose great heart was 
worthy of such a fortune. M. Ledru-Rollin 
figured as the representative of the Socialists 
and the Jacobins. 

The greater number of Thiers' political 
friends, Messrs. Dufaure, de Tocqueville, de 
Lasteyrie, de Remusat, declared for General 
Cavaignac. Without foreseeing the extreme 
consequences of the success of the rival can- 
didate, they distrusted that predestined race ; 
and their foresight, which was perhaps as in- 
stinctive as the enthusiasm of the masses, at- 
tached them to the Republic. Thiers, on the 
other hand, believed that the French people 
were at that time little disposed to accept a 
master. Of the two chief preoccupations of 
the statesman, order and freedom, the latter 
seemed to him assured ; he was more inclined 
to fear anarchy than despotism. He hesi- 



112 Thiers. 

tated long, however, for the reputation of the 
Boulogne and Strasburg conspirator was not 
precisely such as to inspire confidence. Fi- 
nally, he made up his mind to vote for the 
Prince. He thought that a supreme interest 
commanded all good citizens to unite in de- 
fence of the social order, and that the establish- 
ment of the Republic would take away both 
the desire and the power of stirring up a new 
revolution. He was to make the same attempt 
later on, under conditions more tragic, and, in 
some respects, more favorable. But now, not 
believing in the success either of General Ca- 
vaignac or of the Prince of Joinville, he wished 
to strengthen the conservative party with the 
popular power represented by the name of 
Bonaparte. As the prince in whom this power 
was invested had been the hero of no expedi- 
tion to Egypt, of no Italian campaign, there 
was some chance that he would not be found 
altogether infatuated, and deaf to good advice. 
His election was certain, and it might seem 
imprudent to array the friends of social order 
against the national will. 

Thiers represented at that moment an im- 
portant section of public opinion, which he 
did much to mould and restrain. He reas- 
sured and held in check the once liberal mid- 
dle class, which was then inclined to sacrifice 



The ReptLblic of 184.8. 1 1 3 

its principles to an exaggerated need of secu- 
rity, and to push conservatism to absolutism, 
Catholicism to Ultramontanism, M. de Falloux 
has published interesting " Memoirs," which 
recall a memorable personality and a Machia- 
vellism that is not without its artlessness. He 
seems to wonder that Thiers did not fear the 
social peril so much as to rally to the House 
of Bourbon, What an aberration of party 
spirit ! Apart from the fact that such an 
amende honorable would have been a sacrifice 
such as Thiers could hardly have made with 
dignity, no reason appears why he should 
have been expected to make it. He was seek- 
ing some force to set against the roaring tide 
of demagogy. He could find points of sup- 
port in a parliament, in eloquence, in well- 
considered laws, in modifications of universal 
suffrage, in the name of Bonaparte, in the 
magistracy, the clergy, the arm.y. But the 
claim to reign by hereditary right over a peo- 
ple that had so often denied the right, — what 
could it be but a source of weakness to a gov- 
ernment? It was important to make broad 
the forehead of resistance, and M. Falloux and 
his friends proposed to restrict it to the narrow 
regal fillet. They would have appealed to all 
citizens, not in the name of order and of con- 
servative principles, but in the name of the 



114 Thiers. 

Count of Chambord, in the name of a principle 
constantly rejected, in the name of a flag that 
had long been a symbol of defeat. How many 
honest men would not have given over the de- 
fence, had they not felt that in fighting for order 
they were fighting for the Republican order ! 

Prince Louis Bonaparte's success went be- 
yond all anticipations. Less than a year after 
the fall of parliamentary government in the 
most delicate of its forms, after an appeal so 
direct and unreserved to the national will, the 
Chief Magistracy became lodged in the hands 
of a representative of the unlimited power of 
a single man. The popularity of a name, 
the witchcraft of distant memories, the per- 
petual illusion of the Monarchists, the coali- 
tion of the discontented, the hopes of the out- 
cast, — all had combined to give unexpected 
strength to the anti-Liberal movement. The 
mark was certainly overshot, and the new 
Chamber soon aggravated the situation. The 
Constituent Assembly had won distinction for 
its courage, its good sense, its honesty. It was 
one of the best legislatures that France has 
had. In the Legislative Assembly that suc- 
ceeded it, the moderate party hardly existed ; 
the Republic was represented only by a scarped 
and rugged Mountain. The more or less con- 
servative majority was made up of dismissed 



The Republic of 184.8. 115 

officials, of disappointed politicians, of demoral- 
ized Liberals, of angry capitalists, of confident 
Legitimists, of Bonapartists who were already 
almost conspirators. These partners of a day 
would have sacrificed everything to the double 
purpose of resisting the Reds and of reacting 
against the February Revolution. 

Thiers' first speech in this Assembly, which 
was to live so brief a span and to die so op- 
portunely, had but one aim, — peace. The 
Revolution, which had acted upon France as a 
narcotic, had acted as a stimulant abroad, and 
the name of Bonaparte was not calculated to 
allay uneasiness. In June, 1849, Thiers accord- 
ingly rose to defend the Government's Italian 
policy and to favor the credits for the Roman 
expedition. This action was a considerable 
pledge to the conservative opinion of Europe, 
— a pledge that cost Thiers little, for he had 
always been favorable to the Holy See and 
even to the temporal power. " What next, 
now that the Pope plays the Liberal?" Met- 
ternich was saying at about this time. But 
what so irritated Metternich, made it easier for 
the French Liberals to come to an understand- 
ing with the Catholics. As to the temporal 
power, Thiers had more than once advanced 
the ingenious and very disputable opinion that 
if it be true that nations have the right of self- 



ii6 Thiers. 

government, this right was not infringed in the 
case of the Romans. The States whicli bear 
that name, he contended, belong to all the 
Catholics, who constitute their sovereign peo- 
ple, and this people wills the supremacy of 
the Pope and has the right to impose it. 

This service to the majority of the Catholics 
put that party in a humor to ask other services, 
and Thiers was found very willing to render 
them. He had been greatly struck, at the time 
of the February Revolution, with the attitude of 
the clergy toward the Orleans Monarchy. Gui- 
zot had said from the Tribune, " The clergy was 
not exiled with Charles X., but it was dethroned 
with him." Even so moderate a revolution as 
this could not, however, be well received by a 
dominion-loving hierarchy. The clerical party 
had been dissatisfied even with the Restoration 
Government, which had in its service more of 
the indifferent than of the faithful, and had been 
treated by the Government of Louis Philippe 
with respect rather than with favor. Ac- 
cordingly, it is widely believed that from 1830 
to 1848 the priests were persecuted. Readers 
will recall the exclamation of the old monk 
who, having lost in the cloister the notion of 
time and of revolutions, was expelled from his 
monastery in 1881 : " Will this Louis PhiHppe 
never cease to persecute us? " Thiers was too 



The Republic 0/184.8. 117 

just to reproach the Guizot Government with 
the measures which he himself had helped de- 
fend ; but he saw in the clerical party one of the 
forces that perhaps contributed to the fall of 
the Monarchy, and that had more than once 
compelled it to yield. Having been formidable 
adversaries, they would be useful auxiliaries. 
He therefore received Falloux's propositions 
kindly, almost eagerly. The only thing the 
clergy and their friends could ask was precisely 
what had been denied them under monarchical 
governments, — the right of instruction, and a 
definitive victory in their conflict of centuries 
against the University. 

The sentiments of the University were pretty 
much the same as those which had actuated the 
authors of the July Revolution. It was but a 
few years since the most eminent statesmen of 
the time had defended the University in the 
Chamber of Peers against Montalembert. Out 
of this discussion grew the Bill of 1844, upon 
which Thiers had made a very favorable re- 
port to the lower House. What was asked of 
him was therefore really a concession ; still, he 
had never exhibited much zeal for the diffu- 
sion of education, and was inclined to regard 
it as an impracticable dream of the doctrinaires, 
especially of Guizot. Thiers reproached the 
professors with having too readily received the 



1 1 8 Thiers. 

new ideas; he found fault with the extension 
given to scientific studies ; he even complained 
that too much time was given to Greek, — not 
because, as Cousin with friendly insolence 
taunted him, he did not know Greek, but be- 
cause he preferred the stern and practical 
genius of ancient Rome. And indeed if the 
professors were a little inclined toward the 
Left, the mass of the teachers had passed to 
the extreme Left, and threatened to wield a 
dangerous influence upon the elections. 

All this made less unpleasant the conces- 
sion which he was asked to make to the public 
interest. Nevertheless, his support of the 
Law of 1850 has been characterized as a re- 
cantation and as a conversion, — two words of 
sinister sound to the ears of a public man. In 
an able speech he exonerated himself from the 
charge of instability by the only method that 
satisfies a serious man at such a time, — not 
by denying any change, but by explaining it 
on the ground of changed circumstances. In 
reading this speech, one perceives that he had 
made every effort to save all that could be 
saved of the interests of knowledge and reason. 
But he could not completely defend the radical 
defect of a law which delivered our youth and 
our society over to the contention of two op- 
posite forces, from whose collision a shock 



The Republic of 1848. 1 1 9 

was as certain as from the collision of two 
clouds oppositely charged with electricity. 
If parties have since that day hardened into 
sects, the embodiment of the Falloux prin- 
ciples in the Law of 1850 has had its share in 
the result. It is scarcely necessary to add that 
nobody was satisfied, perhaps not even the 
authors of the Bill. Guizot attacked it in the 
" Journal des Debats," M. Jules Simon in his 
"Freedom of Thought," M. Barthelemy Saint- 
Hilaire from the Tribune, in the name of the 
University. On the other hand, the Ultramon- 
tane press and the hierarchy showered their 
anathemas upon M. de Falloux. It was a gen- 
uine compromise. 

This and other sacrifices to the spirit of the 
time have often been regretted. What a time, 
and what a spirit ! The President of the Re- 
public made it his business to bring to nought 
the most intelligent efforts, and would have 
broken up the most united of parties. In 
order to foil him it would have been necessary 
to foresee his course. His policy consisted in 
promising the democratic party a government 
more in harmony with their wishes than that 
of the Assembly, and in promising the mid- 
dle class a repose untroubled by agitations, 
interpellations, and ministerial crises. To this 
some Royalists added, of their own accord, the 



I20 Thiers. 

hope that the Prince would yield the supreme 
power to their king. The policy was much 
the same as that of the first Bonaparte, minus 
the greatness. 

The conflict between the two powers arose 
in the simplest way in the world. The com- 
mander of the army at Paris was General 
Changarnier, who, although but slightly de- 
voted to the Republic, was looked to as the 
defender of law, and consequently of the As- 
sembly. This position, together with his worth 
and real dignity of character, made him a con- 
siderable personage. His relation to the Presi- 
dent recalled that of the Duke of Guise to 
Henry HI. The General also said, " He would 
not dare ! " when a possible dismissal was spoken 
of. The future Napoleon HI. did, however, 
dare to dismiss him abruptly, and the Assem- 
bly felt keenly the insult and the danger. It 
was on the occasion of the interpellation pro- 
voked by this first act of the conspiracy that 
Thiers delivered one of his ablest speeches. 
He resumed the place which he had aban- 
doned in favor of a public interest whose 
pressing importance he had exaggerated, and 
became once more the undisputed leader of 
the Liberal party, — a place which he thence- 
forward retained to the last. 

His speech was a model of the prophetic 



The Republic of 184.8. 121 

good-sense in which he was unequalled. He 
made a detailed history of the aid and support 
given by the Chamber to the President, whom 
he reproached with offensive ingratitude, and 
closed with the following memorable words : — 

" Permit me this remark : when one of two powers 
in the State has encroached on the other, it is indeed 
annoying to the encroaching power to yield ; but if 
it be the invaded power that yields, its weakness is 
made so patent to all eyes that it is lost. I add but 
one word : there are to-day in our Government but 
two powers, the executive power and the legislative 
power. If the Assembly yields to-day, there will 
remain but one. And from the moment when there 
shall be but one power in the State, the form of the 
government will be changed. The name, the title, 
may come when it will ; that matters little to me. 
But the thing that you say you do not wish, you 
will obtain this very day if you yield. There remains, 
then, but one power, I repeat ; the name will come 
in time. The Empire is established ! " 

This was not Thiers' last speech in that 
Assembly, but these were his last political 
counsels. They display a sentiment compati- 
ble even with the Republic of 1848, but in- 
compatible with anything looking toward a 
dictatorship. They are the expression of a 
slowly formed, definitive opinion to which he 



122 Thiers. 

remained faithful. He took no part in dis- 
cussing the proposed revision of the Constitu- 
tion, — a plan devised by shrewd fomenters of 
disorder, who saw that it would be easier to 
suppress the Republic by process of law than 
to overthrow it by force. An article in the 
Constitution made a two-thirds majority neces- 
sary for revision ; and as more than a third of 
the Assembly was composed of Republicans 
who would not take part in the perilous game, 
the measure could not be carried. But the 
proposition was a blow to the Constitution ; 
it excused — almost exonerated beforehand — 
those who should violate the Constitution ; it 
called in question the organization, and there- 
fore the very existence, of the Republic. The 
measure failed by nearly a hundred votes, but 
the legal basis of the Republic was shaken. 

This legal basis was once more supported 
by Thiers in the sitting of Nov. 17, 185 1. 
The discussion turned upon the then famous 
proposition of the Questors, who claimed for 
the Assembly the right of calling out the army 
in order that the legislative body should not 
be at the mercy of its enemies. No sober man 
would deem hesitation possible touching this 
legitimate and modest proposal ; nevertheless, 
it was rejected. The Assembly was so bitterly 
divided, that each faction suspected its neigh- 



The Repilblic of 184.8. 123 

bor of an intention to make illegal use of this 
legal force, and so a strange coalition was organ- 
ized against the only means of safety. These 
are the evil days of parliaments, when they 
make good all the slanders of their enemies ; 
when rage, rancor, rivalry, cloud all notions of 
justice and of foresight. But these occasional 
faults of parliaments are permanent in absolute 
governments. This was shown a few weeks 
later. The coup d^tat was accomplished, and 
free discussion, — the pledge of all security and 
of all freedom, — political morality, real order 
(for order is not another name for silence), 
solid and lasting peace, everything that makes 
for the honor of a nation, disappeared in a 
night. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE EMPIRE (1851-1863). 

THIERS felt the woes of France as other 
men feel the heart-breaking sorrows of 
private life. He has been known to shed tears 
in the Tribune over the distresses of his con- 
quered country. By the side of his grief at 
the defeat of freedom, exile and imprisonment 
were trifles. This unexpected proscription 
could not in the least further the plans of the 
author of the coup d'etat. Of what avail was 
mere eloquence against material force? The 
Assembly once dissolved, Thiers was but a 
helpless, inoffensive citizen. He received, how- 
ever, precisely the same treatment as the heads 
of the army. Early in the morning of the 
2d of December, 185 1, he was taken from his 
house in St, George Place, and sent under es- 
cort, first to the prison of Mazas, then to that 
of Ham, finally to Brussels, where he received 
notification of his exile. Messrs. de Lasteyrie, 
de Remusat, Duvergier de Hauranne, Baze, 
Roger, after a week at Mazas, were by the 



The Empire (i8^i-i86j). 125 

same decree exiled from France. The exile 
of the Princes of Orleans was at the same time 
confirmed, and aggravated by the confiscation 
of their estates. This, according to M. Dupin, 
who soon became Attorney-General at the 
Court of Appeals, was " the first flight of the 
eagle." 

The exiles passed the first months — some- 
times together, sometimes dispersed — at Brus- 
sels, at London, in Switzerland. In July, as 
Thiers was preparing to set out for Italy, he 
suddenly learned from the "Moniteur Officiel" 
of a decree authorizing the victims of the for- 
mer arbitrary decree to return to their homes. 
The same whim that had shut the doors of 
France opened them again, and no attempt 
at an explanation broke the universal silence. 
This was the beginning of that illogical series 
of shocks which characterized the policy of the 
next eighteen years. With more or less eager- 
ness every one took advantage of this permis- 
sion, with all the gratitude which we owe, said 
Thiers, " to the man who returns a watch that 
he has stolen." 

"Augustus re-established order, which is only 
another name for lasting servitude; for when 
a usurper has seized the sovereignty of a free 
State, the name of law is given to whatever 
tends to confirm the unbounded authority of a 



126 Thiers. 

single man, and the name of disturbance, dis- 
sension, misgovernment, to whatever tends to 
maintain the honorable freedom of subjects." 
These words of Montesquieu describe in a mas- 
terly way the spectacle awaiting the exiles at 
their return ; for if the manifestations of free- 
dom are always new, the proceedings of des- 
potism are extremely monotonous. Rarely, 
however, has a country so quickly and com- 
pletely forgotten all the principles for which it 
had fought and suffered. Like Balzac's Ras- 
tignacs and Marsays, the masters of France had 
seen a speculation upon Change as well as a 
coup d'etat in the complot whereby they had 
risen to power ; and Thiers must have felt as 
Lafayette did on his return from captivity at 
Oimiitz, — that France had become dwarfed 
since his departure. 

If by the aid of some historical reminis- 
cences and of some contempt for human kind, 
it was possible to explain the profound calm 
which had succeeded the agitations of a free 
country, the boldest invention would have been 
taxed to imagine how quickly this calm was to 
be disturbed by the very man whose interests 
it seemed to subserve. The assumption ap- 
peared reasonable that President Louis Bona- 
parte, who had made himself Emperor under 
the singularly chosen name of Napoleon IIL, 



The Empire (1831-1863). 127 

would give absolute repose to a country which 
no longer found scope either for its imagination 
or for its vanity in the cultivation of politics. 
This seemed the more probable, inasmuch as the 
master himself had little taste for affairs, and a 
real passion for pleasure. But observers reck- 
oned without that peculiar trait of the Bona- 
partes, — the desire to make themselves felt 
in the affairs of the world; a desire which, 
after all, makes them great, and separates them 
from vulgar adventurers. The nation wished to 
sleep ; it was promptly awakened. Men were 
looking forward to a peaceful and sluggish hfe 
under a moderate despotism, when suddenly, 
after having formed an Imperial Court, which 
was displeasing enough to an equality-loving 
people, the Emperor contracted a marriage of 
love, which cut him off from all the rest of the 
crowned heads. Having promised peace, he 
set about making war everj^where, and on all 
pretexts, — in the Crimea, in Syria, in China, 
in Mexico, in Italy; he even threatened Eng- 
land with invasion. And every day brought 
some unexpected official address, some edict of 
the Senate, some amendment to the Consti- 
tution, some imperial journey abroad or to 
Algiers, some revolution in the palace, or, 
what was much the same thing, some change 
of ministry. 



128 Thiers. 

Worse yet, even the boasted safeguard 
against social disturbances seemed at times 
ready to disappear. The report was suddenly 
circulated that the Emperor was a socialist. 
Banks, treasuries, economic novelties of all 
kinds, were proposed by him, and made the 
subjects of protracted discussions by the great 
deliberative bodies of the State. These pro- 
jects would disturb the public for a while, 
only to be pigeon-holed by functionaries more 
addicted to routine, perhaps wiser, than their 
masters. And the good people who, thinking 
themselves well rid of troublesome discussions, 
had rejoiced at the dissolution of the Assem- 
bly, were obliged to hear from a loftier tribune 
phrases announcing the most frightful inten- 
tions. For example, when the Emperor's aid 
was called for against the seditious demagogues 
of the great cities, he said to them, "My fibre 
answers to yours," — a phrase as distasteful to 
linguistic as to political conservatives. 

Thiers used to relate that one day the Duke 
of Wellington, wearied at the Council-board 
by the lengthy harangues of Lord Harrowby, 
exclaimed, " My Lord, you have too much 
education for your intelligence ! " It may be 
said that the Emperor had too much imagina- 
tion, not for his intelligence, but for his power 
of concentration, — too many ideas for his ex- 



The Empire (1831-1863). 129 

ecutive faculty. As Thiers said, he frequently 
confused the verb dream (rever) with the verb 
reflect. Now France has the habit of mistaking 
both the proposals of its deputies and the lucu- 
brations of its sovereigns for dangerous reali- 
ties ; and thus real difficulties are increased by 
imaginary apprehensions. Here, all was not a 
dream; this mental activity of Napoleon III., 
by arousing curiosity, criticism, attention, dis- 
turbed the slumber that every despot must be 
anxious to produce ; and when, finally, he was 
compelled to grant some shadow of freedom, 
he had to encounter all the hatred of the first 
day, embittered by all the errors of more than 
a decade. 

During the first epoch of the Empire, Thiers 
took no part in politics. He limited himself 
to some bit of advice, rarely followed, touching 
foreign affairs, or to some warning to one of 
the diplomatists who frequented Parisian soci- 
ety as well as the ministerial bureaux. This 
society was at that time very brilliant. That 
portion, especially, which rather insolently 
styles itself the grand monde was then, despite 
the misfortunes of the time, thoroughly amus- 
ing. Talleyrand used to say that one who had 
not seen the salons of 1789 could not know the 
pleasure of living. This judgment was doubt- 
less partly due to the fact that Talleyrand was 

9 



130 Thiers. 

then young, but also quite as much to the cir- 
cumstance that good society was then unani- 
mous in its taste for free government and 
enlightened philosophy. Likewise in 1852, 
Parisian society was very hostile to the revived 
Empire. Everybody agreed in cursing despot- 
ism, and academicians who had seen so many of 
their fellows arrested ; partisans of the royal fam- 
ilies whose princes were proscribed and ruined ; 
parliamentarians in mourning for freedom of 
speech; men of the middle class irritated by 
the pretensions of the Court; aristocrats who 
ridiculed that vulgar Court with its petty mag- 
nificence ; members of the liberal professions 
who felt oppressed or threatened, — all united 
to exchange those sarcasms, those anecdotes, 
which are the delight of the salon. At no 
time, perhaps, has French society been more 
divorced from the government, and one might 
frequent it for a long time without meeting a 
partisan of the established regime. If, as he 
alleged, the Emperor had saved society, the 
claim was not acknowledged by good society. 
Here all were irreconcilable : Legitimists, Re- 
publicans, Orleanists, Liberals, gave one another 
the hand. It was then that "the Liberal 
Union " was formed. This was neither a secret 
society nor an organization ; the members were 
bound by no positive engagement, but by the 



The Empire (18^1-1863). 131 

simple understanding that when the mistakes 
of the Empire should cause its inevitable 
downfall, its enemies should all stand shoulder 
to shoulder, whatever the free government that 
might succeed, whether republic or monarchy. 
It is possible to see some trace of this dispo- 
sition in the first deliberations of the National 
Assembly of 1871. 

M. Thiers took a brilliant part in the racy 
conversations of the elite of Paris, and it was at 
this time that he most freely gratified his social 
tastes. As a natural result of his mode of life, 
his conversation had become refined, his habits 
had grown more delicate and more elegant, 
while at the same time society had accustomed 
itself to whatever was peculiar or original in 
his manners. Two things are requisite to suc- 
cess in the salon : one must be like others, and 
yet one must have some note of distinction 
from others. From the social standpoint, it is 
as fatal to be like everybody as to be like no- 
body; and superior men, along with the rest, 
are subject to this law. It is needless to say 
that in Thiers the element of originality was 
very marked. Nevertheless, he was thoroughly 
amiable in his relations with men, and he ex- 
hibited a delicate gallantry toward women. 
To this gallantry it cannot be said that all 
were entirely insensible. 



132 Thiers, 

Thiers carried into society — no easy thing 
— a jealous patriotism. Before the interests 
of France all party zeal died out in him, and 
he never in the slightest degree shared the 
feeling of an imigre. During the Crimean War 
no one wished more heartily for the success of 
our arms ; and the Emperor felt this so strong- 
ly that he referred to Thiers in a public dis- 
course as " the illustrious national historian." 
It was not merely as a patriot, however, that 
Thiers took an interest in the war; he saw 
his plans of 1840 being realized by that same 
army of the July Government whose most dis- 
tinguished captains were now in exile. He 
occupied himself very much with the matter, 
and his opinions sometimes reached the impe- 
rial ear. M. Merimee, who had been drawn to 
the Empire by his opinions, and still more by 
his affections, was one of the few who saw both 
parties. This Saint-Evremond of our century 
deserved this exceptional position by his free- 
dom of mind and his trustworthiness. One 
evening in 1855, when Merimee chanced to 
be present in the salon of St. George Place, 
Thiers warmly pointed out certain measures 
that should be taken and certain things that 
should be said, in the critical situation in which 
France then stood. Merimee, thinking to be 
useful to both, repeated the conversation to the 



The Empire (iS^i-iSdj). 133 

Emperor. " You will thank M. Thiers," returned 
the Emperor, " but he is not at the centre of 
the situation. He is accustomed to address a 
Chamber actuated by patriotic sentiments and 
opinions; we live in different times ! " 

The epigrams of the salons and a few bits of 
political advice were mere trifles in the mental 
activity of a man who had erewhile filled Eu- 
rope with his policy and with his deeds. Before 
speaking of the great work upon which he was 
engaged, it must be added that he acquired 
at this time a taste for the sciences. He had 
learned little of them in his youth, the colleges 
of the First Empire having been weak on this 
side. At times, however, his alert curiosity 
had turned him in that direction; even under 
the Restoration he had taken lessons in alge- 
bra. He now turned his attention chiefly to the 
natural sciences and to astronomy. Sometimes 
he spent the whole night star-gazing at the 
Observatory, and he followed the researches 
of Pasteur at the Normal School. He even 
caused Plateau's fine experiment on the forma- 
tion of the world to be repeated. His mind 
certainly gained in severity by these attempts, 
and some trace of this discipline is to be found 
in his speeches. But science cannot be cul- 
tivated without those preliminary studies for 
which he had neither taste nor time; and 



1 34 Thiers. 

to the fruitful invention of scientific ideas, a 
thorough acquaintance with what others have 
thought is indispensable. Now, Thiers cared 
little to know what others had thought; intel- 
lectually, others scarcely existed for him. It 
was therefore not very safe for him to venture 
upon this new ground. In the natural and 
physical sciences, more than elsewhere, it is 
necessary to be on one's guard against the 
desire for clearness. That which seems ex- 
tremely clear and neat is very apt not to be 
true. Although Voltaire's science is not to be 
despised, one feels that he prefers the risk of 
seeming superficial to that of not being under- 
stood ; and Thiers is open to much the same 
reproach. He wrote, however, a book upon 
these subjects, demonstrating to his own satis- 
faction the theory of necessary ideas in scien- 
tific philosophy; and one of his speeches, a 
few years later, set forth the analogous theory 
of necessary liberties. This work is not suffi- 
ciently finished to be published and exposed 
to the criticism of professional scholars, who 
have but little indulgence for amateurs. Cham- 
fort has an anecdote of a Genevan law pro- 
fessor, who concluded a rapturous eulogy of 
Voltaire's universality with the remark, " It is 
only in public law that I find him a bit defi- 
cient." " And for my part," said Dalemberg, 



The Empire (1831-1863). 135 

*' it is only in geometry that I find him a bit 
deficient." 

Thiers' best diversion during these years was 
the completion of his " History of the Con- 
sulate and the Empire." ^ Sainte-Beuve had 
spoken of the first volumes with an admiration 
that was more than justified by the later ones, 
— the chances and changes of the author's life 
having brought him the deeper knowledge of 
men and affairs for which we pay so dear. It 
has been asserted that he inferred too much 
from his own experience ; that the coup d'etat 
of December 2 (1851) led him to scan with 
greater suspicion that of the i8th Brumaire; 
that Napoleon III. opened his eyes concerning 
Napoleon I. ; and that he thenceforward judged 
the First Empire in the light of the Second. 
If experience — which in spite of popular 
prepossessions is so rarely instructive — had 
led him to think of these two sovereigns what 
Tacitus said of Augustus, Cunctafessarecepit, — 
" The Commonwealth being exhausted, he took 
command of it," — there would have been no 
great harm. But the truth is, that if there be 

1 The first five volumes appeared in 1845; ^^ sixth and 
seventh, in 1847; the eighth and ninth, in 1849; the tenth, 
eleventh, and twelfth, in 1851 ; the thirteenth and fourteenth, 
in T856 ; the fifteenth and sixteenth, in 1857 ; the seventeenth 
and eighteenth, in 1S60; and the last two, in 1861 and 1862. 



136 Thiers. 

any difference in Thiers' judgments before and 
after 185 1, the Emperor himself is to blame, 
rather than his nephew. Can it be maintained 
that Napoleon is the same man from the first 
days of the Consulate to the last days of the 
Empire? How could the author treat in the 
same manner the great captain who gave lustre 
to the French name, and the indefatigable gam- 
bler who constantly set our destinies at stake 
on the bloody gaming-table of the battlefield? 
General Bonaparte, as Chief Magistrate, was 
irreproachable ; such was the opinion of his 
country and of impartial Europe. He was not 
only a moderate restorer, — he was able and 
fertile, original and brilliant. He made France 
live in an atmosphere of security, of hope, and 
of admiration. The origin of his power, the 
forms of his government, the means by which 
he sustained it, certainly do not commend them- 
selves to liberal opinion. But historians are 
not doctors of constitutional law. The histo- 
rian must take men as they are, and judge 
them according to their times. The Govern- 
ment of the First Consul was incomparably 
humaner, juster, more regular, than either the 
Old Regime or the Convention, — the sources 
whence came all the barbarism that still clung 
to it. 

The opposite reproach — that of loving his 



The Empire (iS^i-iSdj). 137 

hero too much — has been more frequently 
raised, and seems better justified. A volume 
could indeed be made up of passages contain- 
ing condemnations, in sharp, stern terms, of 
the Emperor's faults. But it is true that Thiers 
passionately admires his hero ; that he loves 
even when he chastens. He keeps back none 
of the faults, but these faults sadden him, and 
he suggests all that can be said in extenuation 
of genius gone astray. 

Even those who have never been carried 
away by this passion cannot deny that it is 
a powerful source of interest. The current of 
feeling that bears the reader through the wind- 
ings of this immense work is strengthened by 
the seduction of which the author is himself a 
victim, and it is hard to wish him less prepos- 
sessed. Nevertheless, this disposition tends to 
give Napoleon, as he appears in this book, a 
somewhat conventional character. The Em- 
peror is a despot, but the author will have it 
that he is the ideal despot. Napoleon had too 
much wit not to know how to charm and win 
over, when it suited his ends to do so ; but it 
does not follow that this morose and haughty, 
distrustful and irritable person, was the most 
amiable of men. His practical and statesman- 
like spirit made him averse to needless cruelty 
when his power was not at stake ; at times he 



138 Thiers. 

exhibited some emotion upon counting the 
slain. But is it possible to admit that hu- 
manity and pity were habitual to this great 
consumer of human life? Thiers inclines to 
attribute to Napoleon the gentler qualities of 
his own heart. The historian sees works of 
genius in the battles he describes so well, but 
he could not have witnessed these battles with- 
out being stirred to compassion. So, in his 
narrative, war resembles a chess-game, and in 
order to defend his hero he endeavors to sepa- 
rate him into two different beings. " In war, 
the Emperor was prompted by his genius ; in 
politics, by his passions." A great poet has 
likewise said, " It was not RoIIa who con- 
trolled his life, it was his passions ! " ^ But 
do not the passions and the genius of a man 
make up the man himself? The responsi- 
bility lies neither with his passions nor with 
his genius, but with the whole being called 
Napoleon. 

An incomplete analysis of the Emperor's 
character ; an almost complete forgetfulness of 
what was going on abroad, especially in Eng- 
land ; blindness to the quite genuine movement 
of independence and hostility, even in the very 
circle of the sovereign after 181 2; too much 
indulgence for the unjustifiable return from 
1 Alfred de Musset, " RolIa," ii. 



The Empire {i8^i-i86j). 139 

Elba, — these are the faults which are atoned 
for by such great qualities. To the last page 
the author shows unabated zeal and attention 
to detail. Twenty years of his life were de- 
voted to this work. For a professional his- 
torian the time would not be excessive, and 
the task becomes prodigious when one reflects 
that during one half this time the author was 
a busy public man overtaken by two revolu- 
tions, and during the other half a man of the 
world beguiled by a thousand artistic and 
scientific fancies. Yet this history is distin- 
guished from the great models by its more 
faithful and more intelligible account of the 
way in which public business is transacted. It 
pictures political action. This colder side of 
history is never tiresome, — what we under- 
stand well is seldom so. In this, Thiers was an 
innovator, for he alone was capable of giving 
life to the bureaucratic side of human affairs. 
He treats everytliing with winning and com- 
municative vivacity, and even when his thought 
is not very new, all that he thinks strikes him 
so keenly as to give the reader a sense of great 
freshness and novelty. What others appropri- 
ate he seems to discover ; so that if he remarked, 
for example, that fortune is inconstant, you 
would think that you heard it for the first time. 
It is from himself that all the value and effect 



1 40 Thiers. 

of what he says proceeds ; this personal ele- 
ment gives life to masses of the dullest details, 
and renders readable a style which is too often 
lacking in relief and distinction. In the pref- 
ace to his twelfth volume he himself sets forth 
the conditions of the historic style, — condi- 
tions which he reduces to the single requisite of 
transparency. Style should resemble the best 
plate-glass; whatever renders it perceptible is 
a flaw. 

In laying down the laws of the historic style, 
Thiers naturally described his own, just as 
Boileau in his ** Poetic Art " set forth the rules 
of his own composition. This does not neces- 
sarily imply that there is but one way of writ- 
ing history, — that it is not permitted to dis- 
play the talents of a romancer like Augustin 
Thierry, of a poet like Lamartine, of a physi- 
ologist like Michelet. But the truth is that the 
political history of our century is best writ- 
ten with simplicity, with detail, with lucidity, 
and that it cannot be otherwise conceived 
without violating the condition of scrupulous 
exactitude. Did Thiers conform to this indis- 
pensable condition? In this respect, critics 
have done him the most uniform justice. They 
have noted divergencies of opinion rather 
than deviations from fact, and confirmation 
has often come from the most unexpected 



The Empire (1831-1863). 141 

quarters. Thus Prince Metternich wrote to 
Lady Westmoreland : ^ — 

" I had never expected to find in a French book 
a veracious account of the course of Austrian policy 
in the years 1812 and 1813, — least of all from the 
pen of M. Thiers, whom I have never met except 
briefly on two occasions, and whose decided adver- 
sary I have been throughout his different ministries. 
Latterly I have often been asked by men of impor- 
tance, ' Are you not writing ? ' My uniform reply 
has been, ' All that I could write is laid away in the 
archives for the use of the historians of the fu- 
ture.' To-day I can refer those who may be curious 
to inform themselves, to the fifteenth volume of 
M. Thiers' History." 

1 April 4, 1857. Memoirs, viii. 417. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE EMPIRE (1863-1870). 

WHILE these years of free labor and 
well-employed leisure were passing so 
pleasantly for Thiers, and while France was 
losing sight of the orator in the writer, a great 
change announced itself. The Emperor, per- 
haps wearied with warlike expeditions, per- 
haps yielding to some secret instinct which 
told him that the French were again pos- 
sessed by the passion for change, took it into 
his head to propose and consequently to 
carry out (for he was the sole master) certain 
modifications in the Constitution of 1852. 
This Constitution was simply organized des- 
potism : no freedom of the press, no electo- 
ral liberty, no parliamentary freedom. The 
Emperor alone addressed the Chambers, which 
had not even the right to present an address 
in reply. The Budget and the laws were 
voted by the deputies, it is true, but they had 
the right neither to modify the Budget nor 
to amend the laws. Worse still, the reports 



The Empire (i86j-i8yo). 143 

of the sessions were not published. There 
appeared only an abbreviated analysis of the 
proceedings in the Official Journal, written 
in the third person by the editor, who was 
a mere clerk. When some one happened 
to speak to the Emperor of the orators of 
the Corps Legislatif, he remarked ironically, 
"Why, I know of but one, — M, Denis La- 
garde." ^ The ministers did not sit in the 
Assembly, and had neither responsibility nor 
solidarity. 

To educe from these elements a liberal 
Constitution would have been difficult, nor 
did the Emperor think of it He did not 
make the electors free, he hardly modified 
the press-laws, he permitted the ministers to 
be dependent upon no power save his favor; 
but he permitted the deputies to speak and 
even to reply to him with a respectful address. 
He appointed a special minister, without a 
cabinet and without responsible authority, 
whose function was to defend the active min- 
isters without taking any part in their pro- 
ceedings. So a lawyer who pleads for a 
criminal before the police court is cognizant 
of the facts only after the offence. This was 
a first step in the direction of parliamentary 
government, toward which all civilization 
1 The clerk-editor in question. — Tr. 



144 Thiers. 

tends or to which it returns. The objections 
to the system are obvious : an opposition 
Chamber would easily have unmasked the 
real author behind his attorney, just as the 
police justice punishes the accused ; and 
the attorney would not have been long sup- 
ported by a ministry whose plans had been 
shipwrecked in the Assembly. But the con- 
ception, strange as it was, constituted a step 
forward, and the public interest required that 
Liberal leaders should not be too exacting-. 
The opportunity was a tempting one to speak 
to France of her rights and interests, without 
too narrowly scrutinizing the rectitude of the 
mind that had conceived these reforms. Ac- 
cordingly, upon the announcement of the 
general elections of 1863 (the first since the 
Reform), there was a conference, at the house 
of the late Duke of Broglie, of the leaders of 
the several parliamentary parties. They dis- 
cussed the opportunity of entering the Corps 
Legislatif, and of trying their chances before 
the few constituencies where success was 
possible. 

The step was a serious one. There was in 
the Chamber an opposition group made up of 
distinguished orators, who were styled the Five : 
Messrs. Picard, Jules Favre, Emile Ollivier, 
Darimon, and Henon ; they were for the most 



The Empire (1863-1870). 145 

part young men who had given hostages to 
none of the old parties, and who had been 
neither exiled nor arrested by the Empire. 
Thus they could take oath without scruple, and 
could discuss every question upon its merits. 
The representatives of the old parties, as they 
were called, General Cavaignac and M, Carnot, 
had hitherto sought in the elections only an 
opportunity for protesting and for refusing the 
oath. The Broglie Conference had therefore 
to decide upon an important change of front 
on the part of the public men present. If 
they became deputies, they would be obliged 
to relinquish the attitude of absolute, uncom- 
promising opponents of the Empire. Apart 
from the not very agreeable formality of the 
oath, honor commands those who by entering 
the Assembly assume a share in the govern- 
ment, not only to abstain from conspiring 
against that government, but not to attempt in 
any wise to overturn it, to regard themselves 
as no longer strangers to power, — in a word, 
to limit themselves to a constitutional oppo- 
sition. Their conscience binds them to vote 
only for laws which they would propose were 
they members of the Ministry. If their opin- 
ions prevail in the Chamber, they may not 
refuse, if called upon, to attempt to carry them 
out in action. 



146 Thiers. 

In the Broglie Conference some declared 
this effort to be beyond the strength of their 
impartiahty. They could be nothing but eter- 
nal enemies of the Empire, and could be sat- 
isfied by nothing short of its fall. The major- 
ity thought, however, that the useful task of 
spreading the truth, of discussing the Budget 
and the laws, and, by means of Constitutional 
Amendments of which the Emperor had first 
set the example, of attaining the government 
of the people by the people, was sufficient to 
justify the sacrifice of some grudges and of 
some hopes. After a serious discussion the 
acceptance of candidatures was agreed upon. 

Thiers was not present at the Conference, 
He approved its resolutions, but was at first 
averse to the thought of himself carrying them 
out, and thus sacrificing his leisure, his tastes, 
his freedom of speech, perhaps his friendships. 
He was now sixty-six years old ; would he feel 
at home in the Tribune, the steps of which he 
had not mounted since he was fifty-four? He 
decided, however, to set the example, and ac- 
cepted two candidacies, one at Valenciennes 
and one at Paris, He was elected only at 
Paris, for electoral liberty did not exist in 
the provinces, and scarcely any of his friends 
were elected with him, Paris has never better 
justified her claim to be a refuge for the Oppo- 



The E^npire {1863-1870). 147 

sition, and M. de Persigny's violent proceed- 
ings tended to make the election a personal 
defeat for the Emperor. This placed Thiers 
in a false light, for he was always respectful 
even to mere de facto governments. 

It was a great, day for France and for the 
intellectual world, and many young hearts beat 
faster, when Thiers rose for the first time in the 
Imperial Parliament. He did not ascend the 
Tribune, which was reserved for the Imperial 
Advocate. He spoke from his place in the 
House, and all eyes were fastened upon that 
well-known face. His eyes gleamed with 
shrewdness, and appeared, as he looked over 
his spectacles, to strike to the very souls of 
his hearers. They remarked his attitude, fa- 
miliar but serious, and his white hair which 
bore witness to a long and glorious past. 
With what feelings they heard his voice and 
caught that Provengal accent which lends pi- 
quancy to the commonest words ! Everything 
about him suggested that he had been con- 
jured up from another age to redeem us from 
the sombre future we already foreboded. 
France, silent for a dozen years, had found a 
voice again in the most French of her children, 
and the fire and force of her spokesman were 
unabated by age. With his accustomed art 
he adapted himself to a new situation, to a 



148 Thiers. 

suspicious power which must not be irritated, 
to unknown and distrustful auditors quick to 
take alarm, to an outside public difficult to 
please in the matter of opposition. 

This political manifesto (Jan. 14, 1864) be- 
gins with an account of our revolutions and 
of the mistakes of the past, and ends with an 
enumeration of the conditions indispensable to 
any government. These conditions are simply 
and happily described as " the essential liber- 
ties," — freedom of the press, electoral hberty, 
parliamentary freedom, and ministerial respon- 
sibility. The Empire was very far from realizing 
these liberties ; yet there is nothing revolution- 
ary in the demand for them. An enlightened 
conservative might subscribe to it. To prove, 
however, that his intention was not to destroy 
but to build up, he described his own attitude 
toward what were then called "the old parties," 
and toward the past which he was accused of 
wishing to revive. Shall we not find here a 
good lesson in personal dignity and in political 
morality? 

"The French soil is covered with the wrecks of 
these governments. There live men who are termed 
the representatives of the old parties. I am one of 
these representatives ; and I ask you, in the name of 
our common country, for permission to put aside 
every veil. I have observed our country, and I think 



The Empire (iSSj-iSyo). 149 

I know her well. What mission has she intrusted to 
these representatives of the old parties? She has 
given them the mission of studying public affairs, of 
discussing these affairs with sincerity and impartiality, 
but also of probing them. She has given them the 
mission of watching over the public good, of watching 
over the progressive and continuous development of 
our institutions ; for the good administration of pubUc 
affairs is bound up in good institutions. Such is the 
mission which she has given to the representatives of 
the old parties. Should these representatives, instead 
of devoting themselves to this task, show any inten- 
tion to substitute one form of government for an- 
other, one dynasty for another, they would instantly 
become weak ; for they would be going beyond their 
authority. 

" As concerns myself, I have served an august 
family, to-day unfortunate. I owe it the respect 
which we cannot refuse to great sorrows nobly borne. 
I owe it the affection we cannot but feel for those 
with whom we have passed the best portion of our 
lives. There is something which I do not owe, and 
which it does not ask, but which the pride of my soul 
wilHngly gives, — this is to live in retirement, and not 
let my old masters see me aspiring to the splendor 
of authority while they pine in exile. But there is 
one thing which — I call Heaven to witness ! — they 
do not ask of me, which they will never ask, and I 
shall never give, and that is, to sacrifice to them the in- 
terests of my country. I therefore here declare as an 
honest man, that if this essential freedom is granted 



1 50 Thiers. 

us, for my part I shall accept it, and shall take my 
place among the submissive and grateful citizens of 
the Empire. But if it be our duty to accept, permit 
me to say to you that it is the duty of the Govern- 
ment to give. Let it not be supposed that I speak 
the language of arrogant exaction ! No ; I know 
that in order to obtain, one must ask with respect. 
It is therefore with respect that I ask it. But gentle- 
men must beware ! Our fiery country, to-day half 
asleep, whose exaggerated desires are so prone to 
flame up, — this country which permits me to-day to 
ask in her behalf in the most deferential tone, will 
perchance one day require." 

The last words were bold, and he alone 
could pronounce them ; but the dexterity of 
the entire discourse will be noted, and its gra- 
dations in substance and in form. By dint of 
thus skilfully weighing his words, Thiers was 
enabled, throughout the remainder of the Em- 
pire, to ally a very keen opposition with opin- 
ions as moderate and as statesmanlike as ever. 
Inflexible as to the essential conditions of 
parliamentary government, hostile to personal 
power, he is often found in agreement with the 
sentiments — especially the concealed ones — 
of members of the majority, touching our for- 
eign policy, Italy, the temporal power, the pro- 
tectionist system. It cost him neither effort 
nor sacrifice to be agreeable to the timid or 



The Empire (1863-1870). 151 

the prudent, while the frankness and vivacity of 
his assertions of right gave genuine strength to 
hberal France ; and the authority of his name, 
the sohdity and clearness of his arguments, 
forced the Government to reply more seriously 
and more definitely. The public which he 
addressed had been stirred to a certain vague 
anxiety by the renewed caprices of an auto- 
cratic master. Having indulged the thought 
that this master would make no mistakes, the 
public had been willing not to see the mistakes 
which he really made. But the time was com- 
ing when no one was sorry to see these mis- 
takes pointed out and prevented, even at the 
risk of the modest liberties the value of which 
was beginning to be felt. 

Thiers' very compromising attitude some- 
times ruffled his friends of the Left, — for he 
was happily not alone in the Corps Legislatif. 
There was M. Ernest Picard, that bright and 
sensible speaker; M. Jules Favre, a satirical, 
impassioned, correct improviser; M. Emile 
Ollivier, whose southern eloquence gradually 
became colored with the neutral tints of a 
liberal Empire ; M. Berryer, whose thrilling 
voice had not lost its deep accents ; M. Jules 
Simon, as witty and as dramatic as any, eager 
to defend not only political truths, but those 
of morals and humanity. They could not all 



1 5 2 Thiers. 

follow Thiers in his forbearance toward the 
Government, and declared themselves more 
irreconcilable than he. They trusted to the 
natural mobility of our nation, which is rather 
prompt to overturn than able to reform, and 
to the inconsistency of imperial institutions 
with freedom. 

For seven years Thiers gave his countrymen 
lessons in home and foreign politics in these 
speeches permeated with lucid good-sense. 
His limpid exposition would alone have 
made him practically influential as an orator. 
Never has a speaker succeeded better in ac- 
centuating positive reason, in giving point to 
commonplace. His anxiety to instruct is too 
obvious, and he is sometimes prolix; but his 
prolixities are delightful episodes, or ingenious 
historical parallels of which no hearer could 
ever have been weary. 

Though rhetorical precepts and examples 
have never been of much use to any one, it 
is interesting to know Thiers' method of pre- 
paring a speech. After having laid out the 
general plan, he devoted his hours to the 
most assiduous researches, sparing neither 
time nor trouble, questioning specialists per- 
sistently and hearing them patiently, collect- 
ing a mass of materials sufficient for the 
composition of a book. Next he considered 



The Empire (186J-1870). 153 

and winnowed his notes, distributing them to 
the various divisions of his subject. He wrote 
out, not the speech, but the order of his ideas ; 
and then began the strangest preparation. In 
the evening, when his friends were gathered 
in his drawing-room, he turned the conversa- 
tion to the subject with which he was occu- 
pied. This was an easy matter, for wherever 
he talked, the conversation was not apt to be 
discursive. Without throwing off the famihar 
tone, he tried a fragment of his proposed 
speech upon his companions, and gauged its 
interest by their attention and their remarks. 
It was in this first improvisation that parallels 
and episodes occurred to him. It will be seen 
that the method is an easy one. 

It is very difficult to give an account of his 
speeches; the true and interesting way to 
judge them is to read them. One can do this 
without fatigue in M. Calmon's excellent edi- 
tion, with its clear and impartial " arguments," 
the ability of which justifies the important 
part played by the editor in our Assemblies 
during the last twenty years. As we must 
choose some passages, let us leave one side 
the developments of the essential liberties 
(commonplaces to-day), the Roman Question, 
the discussions of the Budget and of the 
merchant marine service ; let us even pass 



154 Thiers. 

over many charming pages like the following 
definition of a free country : — 

"While discussing the true principles of political 
science, Machiavelli raises the question whether 
nations or princes are the more liable to err, and he 
reaches a conclusion which can be reduced to these 
words : Yes, a nation is hable to err, but less so than 
a man. And for the following reason. The individ- 
ual makes mistakes. Why ? Because, being master 
of his own actions, not being compelled to deHber- 
ate, to examine the pros and the cons, he allows him- 
self to be swayed by his inclinations. Then he goes 
astray, and if he hold in his hands the fate of a 
nation, he may plunge it into grievous woes. But 
a free nation is a multiple and collective being ; a 
free nation cannot form a decision without assem- 
bling, deliberating, weighing the pros and the cons ; 
and thus it has that God-given security against 
error, — the obligation of consulting its reason. So 
having long reflected and often asked myself, in the 
course of a life already long, what is the true defini- 
tion of a free nation, I have reached this one, which 
I leave to your meditations : a free nation is a being 
that thinks before it acts." 

We must pass over all that is merely de- 
lightful or useful in these speeches, in order 
to recall that which is politic, prudent, almost 
prophetic. Thiers entered the Chamber in 
order to defend not only freedom but peace, 



The Empire (1863-1870). 155 

— peace which is ahvays endangered by an 
imprudent poHcy. On this point he was an 
absolute conservative. In his speech of April 
13, 1865, he said: — 

" In speaking of domestic affairs, it is quite cor- 
rect to say that there is a new policy. Kings have 
been compelled to share their authority with their 
people. Upper classes have been compelled to 
share their influence with middle or lower classes. 
And for all this new forms were indispensable. But 
in the matter of a foreign policy, whether I go back 
to the most political of ancient historians, Polybius, 
or to the most political of modern historians, Guic- 
ciardini, I find everywhere that foreign policy is 
simply the old-time prudence of a vigilant State, 
which never takes its eye off its neighbors, which 
hinders small States from growing great, great States 
from growing greater, or in any way becoming a 
source of apprehension ; it is always, I say, the 
same old prudence and the same vigilance." 

From this point of view Thiers must have 
been struck by what was taking place before 
his eyes. If the Holy Alliance of his youth, 
which had paralyzed our foreign policy, was 
somewhat weakened by the events of 1848, the 
Emperor's turbulent European policy tended 
to revive it under another form. At the very 
moment of the entrance of the new deputies to 
the Corps Legislatif, the Mexican expedition, 



156 Thiers. 

characterized by M. Rouher as " the finest 
thought of the reign," was being pushed for- 
ward for the sake of reaHzing a dangerous 
theory based upon ethnography, imagination, 
and operations at the Bourse, All this was 
far from reassuring to the positive spirit of 
Thiers, who was very severe toward the 
dreamy, romantic, and somewhat German side 
of Napoleon III. This remarkable personage 
has been described as a man of " unrecognized 
incapacity; " but he was unknown rather than 
unrecognized. Even his duplicity, the wonder 
and envy of the other sovereigns, was overdone. 
He got credit for his silence ; it was beheved 
that he was hatching some great design, when 
he was simply concealing himself He was a 
sphinx who frequently had no enigma. 

Reducing the Imperial foreign policy to its 
simplest terms, we can say that it was pre- 
cisely the reverse of the opinions of Thiers, 
who would have permitted the formation of 
no great neighboring States. If, however, in 
spite of him, such States had been formed, 
he would have taken care to keep the peace 
with them until he had organized a strong 
army. Simple as this is, it is diametrically 
opposed to the policy of the Empire as ex- 
pounded by M. Rouher. The upshot of that 
policy was to favor the creation of powerful 



The Empire (i86j-i8'/o). 157 

States, and then to pick dangerous quarrels 
with them, while sacrificing the strength and 
organization of the army for the sake of popu- 
larity. Thiers opposed the formation of the 
kingdom of Italy, notwithstanding his admi- 
ration and friendship for Cavour, and the satis- 
faction of seeing a great liberal monarchy 
beyond the Alps. He strongly advised inter- 
vention, in 1864, with reference to the question 
of the duchies, of which Lord Palmerston said : 
" But two persons thoroughly understood the 
question of the duchies, — Prince Albert, who 
is dead, and I, who have forgotten it." This is 
a sufficient reason for not entering upon the 
subject here. 

Was it wise, in 1866, to allow Austria to be 
conquered, and to rejoice over this sad presage 
of our misfortunes? Here, again, Thiers felt a 
disabling thrust at France, which would com- 
pel her, one day, to make a heroic effort to 
repair the injury thus permitted. He foresaw 
that dire extremity, the inevitable consequence 
of so many mistakes, but he feared it too much 
not to wish to postpone it. He therefore ex- 
pressed himself so guardedly as not to irritate 
the susceptibilities of France. To this double 
aim his speech of March 14, 1867, was devoted. 
The Liberals of that time have been accused 
of counselling war, because they pointed out 



158 Thiers. 

the danger of the mistakes that had been made, 
and the way to lessen the consequences of 
these mistakes. The reader of this memorable 
speech sees how little justification there is for 
such a reproach, and how many catastrophes 
would have been averted had its clairvoyant 
counsels been followed. In this address, which 
is as literary as it is political, Thiers describes 
how he has been gradually liberalized by 
public events, and how his political education 
has been completed by a very near view of 
the workings of freedom and of absolutism, 
" the one redeeming France, the other com- 
promising her ! " 

It is impossible to deny one's self the pleas- 
ure of transcribing a graceful passage from one 
of his speeches on Italy (April 13, 1865) : 

*' For my part I have always regarded Italy as the 
Greece of the Middle Ages, and Florence as a true 
Christian Athens not inferior to the ancient city ; and 
when one considers all that took place from the year 
1000 to the year 1600, in that epoch so brilliant, so 
fruitful, so admirable, what is there in common, I ask 
you, between Venice, the mediaeval queen of the sea, 
Venice more Asiatic than European, sharing none of 
the passions of Italy where she had scarce a foothold, 
and, after a long career of opulence, falling asleep in 
the arms of aristocracy and of pleasure, leaving us 
an imperishable memorial of her magnificence in the 



The Empire (1863-18^0): 159 

thousand-tinted art of Titian and of Veronese, — 
what is there in common between this aristocratic 
Venice and democratic Florence : Florence, stretched 
in the beautiful plains of the Arno, richer still by her 
manufactures than was Venice by her ships ; Florence, 
impelled by the pride of wealth to combat the feudal 
aristocracy of the Ghibellines, and breathing into Italy 
the Guelf passions with Vi^hich she was fired ; Florence, 
ending in the despotism of the Medici, those Caesars 
of peace, and destined to show forever the striking 
features of the genius of civil war in her palaces, 
which are merely embellished fortresses, in Dante's 
deep and pathetic song inspired by the sorrows of 
exile, in Machiavelli's solid knowledge wrung from the 
experience of revolutions, in Michael Angelo's sternly 
sublime art, so different from the coloring of Titian? " 

The times were becoming darker. There 
had been reason to believe that the elections 
of 1869 would result in an entirely new Corps 
Ldgislatif, which should prevent the final mis- 
take, — "the only one that remained to be com- 
mitted." Unhappily, the electoral oppression 
was as stringent as ever, and the Emperor 
could only "deceive himself again" by univer- 
sal suffrage, as M. Ernest Picard put it. Few 
opposition candidates succeeded in passing the 
meshes of the official net. At Paris, Thiers 
was elected only at a second ballot. But 
Paris has seldom supported reform ; it drives 



1 60 Thiers. 

straight at revolution. In the provinces there 
was little numerical gain ; but Messrs. Gambetta, 
Jules Ferry, Grevy, Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire, 
Horace de Choiseul, were important accessions 
to the Liberal ranks. The movement of the 
popular mind was, however, so evident, the 
number of votes for opposition candidates so 
considerable, the discussion of the ratification 
of powers so unfavorable to the Administration, 
that the Emperor saw it was necessary to yield 
something. He accordingly prepared to grant a 
parliamentary Ministry. After much legislation 
he appointed M. Ollivier President of the Coun- 
cil and Minister of Justice, M. Buffet Minister 
of Finance, and M. Daru Minister of Foreign 
Affairs. This was indeed much. The late Duke 
of Broglie remarked, " We are at least out 
of the woods." The adhesion of others was 
less qualified. M. Masson became Prefect of 
the Department of the Nord, and M, Prevost- 
Paradol Minister to the United States. Both 
were to die upon seeing their hopes of free- 
dom disappointed. 

Never was a Reform Ministry better received. 
Thiers went so far as to say, in his speech of 
Jan. 27, 1870, " My opinions are to be found 
upon the Ministerial benches." Indeed, he 
and his friends were bound to rally to the 
support of any government that opened the 



The Empire (iSSj-iSyo). i6i 

door to popular liberties. Those who still 
harbored some distrust took care to dissemble 
it. Everything indicates the Emperor's sin- 
cerity; but he was weak, and his deputies, his 
high officials, his Court, his very household 
continued to be borne along by the stream 
upon which they had so long floated. How 
could the limpid waters of freedom mingle with 
this turbid stream without defilement? Of this 
new freedom there was no guaranty, the Min- 
istry not having the right to dissolve a hostile 
Chamber where they were received with re- 
spectful antipathy. The Emperor, yielding to 
his old habits of mind, — or rather to his former 
friends and their perilous counsels, — could not 
fail to revert to his fancy for a plebiscite. He 
became infatuated with the plan of submitting 
to universal suffrage, by yes or no, a Consti- 
tution in forty-five articles, without, of course, 
permitting any choice among the articles. 
M. Buffet's austere parliamentary spirit being 
stirred at this, he promptly resigned, followed 
closely by M. Daru. 

How could M. Emile Ollivier fail to see, as 
they saw, that this plebiscite impaired his au- 
thority, that the partisans of absolutism would be 
emboldened by it, and that the politicians, who 
were somewhat coldly yielding to the liberal 
Empire, would be quite dissatisfied and discour- 



1 62 Thiers. 

aged? Full of confidence in the Emperor and 
in himself, he thought he could brave every- 
thing, and continue a parliamentary govern- 
ment between a small minority on the Left, and 
a majority on the Right which only sought an 
opportunity to regain the Imperial favor. In 
this session Thiers seldom spoke. His greatest 
speech is that of January 27, beginning upon 
the commercial treaties and ending upon gen- 
eral politics, under the influence of interrupt- 
ers whose violence was a prelude to that of 
the latter days. He closed with these words : 
" I maintain that neither in public economy 
nor in politics do you exactly represent the 
country." This opinion was supported by 
only thirty-two votes against two hundred and 
twelve official deputies, — an excellent con- 
firmation ! For six months he relapsed into 
silence; but on the 30th of June he hotly 
demanded the contingent of ninety thousand 
men, which some of his opposition colleagues 
opposed, and which the Government aban- 
doned. He would have preferred a levy of a 
hundred thousand men, as in the preceding 
years; and he pointed out that, without any 
thought of aggression, Government was bound 
to take into account the changes going on in 
Europe. By means of treaties of alliance, 
offensive and defensive, with the South Ger- 



The Empire (1863-1870). 163 

man powers, Prussia — till recently a popula- 
tion of nineteen millions — now controlled 
upwards of forty millions. In this entirely 
pacific speech he said : — 

"You will not see that Sadowa has doubled the 
Prussian power; you will not see that instead of a 
Germany all-powerful for defence, but powerless for 
aggression, — for the two principal monarchies, Prus- 
sia and Austria, could never agree upon a question 
of ambition, — you will not see that, instead of this 
inoifensive Germany, you have a formidable military 
Germany, which, to do it justice, does not seek to 
disturb the world, — for at its head is a superior man, 
a lover of peace, — but which makes it necessary for 
you to organize a more considerable mihtary force, in 
order to be able to restrain any ambitious plans that 
might arise." 

It is hardly possible to imagine words more 
moderate and more prudent. And what are 
we to think of a government which, the situa- 
tion being understood, made bold to pick a 
quarrel with Germany, or, if you will, failed 
to prepare to defend itself in the event of a 
quarrel sought by the other side? In either 
aspect the blunder is equally culpable. 

M. Daru was succeeded by the Duke of Gra- 
mont, who was thus unexpectedly placed in 
a Ministry whose opinions he did not at all 
share. Two days after Thiers' remarks, news 



1 64 Thiers. 

was received that Marshal Prim had offered the 
crown of Spain to the Prince of Hohenzollern, 
a relative of the King of Prussia. The Minis- 
ter was asked to inform the Chamber. Gra- 
mont confirmed the news, and, much more, 
declared that France would not permit a 
prince of his dynasty to ascend the throne of 
Charles V. He announced further that, the 
business being so serious, he would keep the 
Chamber informed from day to day. This 
was a declaration of war, or at least a piece of 
" hussar-diplomacy," to quote Doudan's ex- 
pression. Thus Prussian self-respect was in- 
terested in an affair that would have been so 
easy to adjust quietly. Much worse ; as if it 
had been feared that Bismarck's prudent pol- 
icy might foil these warlike plans, the king 
himself was directly addressed, so that a politi- 
cal question was more and more completely 
converted into a personal matter, — a danger- 
ous course at any time. 

In reply to the question addressed to him, 
the King of Prussia answered that he had seen 
no political bearing in the affair, and that it 
was as head of a family, and not as sovereign, 
that he had granted the permission to Prince 
Leopold. Almost at the same time it was 
learned that Spain did not insist, that the 
Prince renounced his claim, and that the King 



The Empire (iSdj-iSyo). 165 

of Prussia approved the renunciation. The 
King even made an official statement of this 
approbation. This was peace, and even a suc- 
cess for an imprudently conducted negotiation. 

Strictly speaking, the Government might 
have plumed itself upon this unlooked-for 
success. But, by a fluctuation sufficiently ex- 
plained by the intrigues of the Court and with- 
in the Ministry, and by the already morbid 
indecision of the Emperor, the Government 
bethought itself to demand of King William 
a new concession. He was asked to pledge 
himself, in the event of any change of mind on 
the part of Spain or of the Prince, never in any 
case to authorize the candidature of a Hohen- 
zollern. This would have been a painful en- 
gagement for a haughty and powerful sovereign, 
surrounded by a court of soldiers who desired 
war. The King, vexed by these demands, — 
which, to crown all, were addressed to him 
personally, — replied that he could not pledge 
himself forever, and that he reserved his free- 
dom of action. 

The French Ambassador, M. Benedetti, one 
of the few able men of the Imperial diplomatic 
service, thought this reply no more than what 
was to be expected. The Minister, however, 
required of him an additional step. Having 
taken this step, the Ambassador was not of- 



1 66 Thiers. 

fended when the King replied through an aide- 
de-camp that, having nothing new to communi- 
cate, he did not wish to resume the interview, 
and that the business was conckided. This 
was also the opinion of M. Benedetti, who 
would not believe that these conversations 
could result in war, without the interposition, 
at a single point, of Bismarck and the Prussian 
Ministry. It is only in tragedies that business 
is transacted in this way between two sover- 
eigns, or between a sovereign and an envoy. 
Alas ! on this occasion there ensued a tragedy 
indeed, and a bloody one. 

At this critical moment the Chamber was 
asked, on the 15th of July, to vote a credit for 
war expenses, and war was thus declared. It 
was a triumph for the purely Bonapartist party, 
which M. Emile Ollivier immediately joined, 
either because he saw a real insult in the King's 
attitude, or because he felt that he could not 
desert the Emperor at such a conjuncture. 
Perhaps he thought himself able to play the 
dangerous game of snatching arms from his 
adversaries' hands, and conceived the hope of 
crowning the brow of the liberal Empire with 
a halo of glory borrowed from the absolute 
Empire. 

Thiers could lend himself to none of these 
schemes. He had long foreseen that the Em- 



The Empire (iSSj-iSyo). 167 

peror's blunders, the very existence of the Em- 
pire, the disproportionate growth of Prussia, the 
inevitable rivalry of warlike nations, our hum- 
bled pride, all portended war; and he exerted 
all his efforts to avert it, to delay it, to seek 
alliances for France, to put her in the right in 
the event of a conflict, and especially to organ- 
ize an army worthy of France. This declara- 
tion of war, improvised upon a frivolous pretext 
by an imprudent Minister, took Thiers by sur- 
prise. He knew that no preparations had been 
made for this terrible conflict ; that our army 
was small, ill-drilled, and ill-equipped. He 
saw his country thoughtlessly dragged into an 
enterprise of which the authors suspected 
neither the difficulties to be overcome nor the 
dangers to be faced. And what a task to say 
all this in public, without compromising France 
and himself! It required a stoical devotion 
to truth, to duty, to the Fatherland. He well 
knew that his aims would be misinterpreted, his 
person insulted. What hope could he cherish 
of persuading a Chamber which was but too 
happy to avenge itself in the name of a feigned 
patriotism? What chance of averting the mis- 
fortune? He was certain to encounter not only 
insincere outrages, but the frank indignation, 
the insulting suspicions, of ignorant adversaries. 
One must be a parliamentary veteran in order 



1 68 Thiers, 

to realize how difficult is the courage neces- 
sary to openly resist a Representative Assem- 
bly when it is fired, even without absolute 
sincerity, by a sentiment of national honor. In 
great public bodies there is a kind of physical 
action of man upon man that renders true for 
them the view which they vociferate. And it 
was Thiers, whose name had stood throughout 
half a century quite as much for the suscepti- 
bility of French honor as for political liberty, 
who, actuated by a patriotism too lofty to be 
understood, was to lead the forlorn hope. 

The violence and vulgarity of the Chamber 
in that sitting of July 15, 1870, was unprece- 
dented. The aim evidently was to prevent 
Thiers from speaking. This speech is there- 
fore not to be cited as a model of oratorical 
art; it is merely the cry of the patriot and 
statesman. Through the storm of insult the 
following broken utterances were scarcely 
heard : — 

*' If there was ever a day, an hour, when it might be 
said without exaggeration that the Genius of History 
had her eyes fixed upon us, it is this day and this 
hour ; and surely such a reflection ought to make 
every one serious. . . . When war shall once be de- 
clared, no one will be more zealous, more eager than 
I to grant to Government all the means necessary to 
secure victory. . . . We cannot exaggerate the gravity 



The Empire (1863-18^0). 169 

of the conjuncture. Remember that your decision 
may result in the death of thousands of men. . . . 
Remember the 6th of May, 1866 ! You then refused 
to hear me when I pointed out to you the gathering 
dangers. . . . Permit me to tell you that I regard 
this war as egregiously imprudent. I love my country, 
and no one was more painfully affected by the events 
of 1866 ; but speaking from profound conviction, and 
if I may venture to say so, from experience, I feel 
that the occasion is ill-chosen. ... If you do not 
understand that at this moment I am performing the 
most painful duty of my life, I pity you. ... As to 
myself, I am tranquil concerning the memory that 
men will preserve of my action this day ; but I am 
certain that you will see the day when you will regret 
your haste. . • . Affront me, . . . insult me . . . ! 
I am ready to bear anything in order to spare the 
blood of my fellow-citizens, which you are so impru- 
dently ready to shed ! " 

When the exhaustion consequent upon a 
struggle of several hours compelled him to de- 
scend from the Tribune, the Minister replied 
to him. A little refreshed by a moment's rest, 
he resumed the unequal struggle against so 
many men leagued together by the Fate pre- 
siding over the falls of empires. What fol- 
lowed is well known. War was declared. The 
Ollivier Ministry could not survive ; for not its 
policy, but that begun on the 2d of December, 



1 70 Thiers. 

1851, was triumphant. After the violence of 
the Corps Legislatif, Thiers was exposed to the 
insults of the street and of subservient news- 
papers. He suffered these things with proud- 
spirited contempt; and wrote, some days later, 
to a friend who had congratulated him upon 
his courage : — 

July 21, 1S70. 

Your letter touches me deeply. You have guessed 
all ; the pretexts for the war are indeed pitiful. 

It was certainly well to keep a vigilant eye upon 
Prussia, and to prepare to take revenge upon her; 
but mistakes are not so easily nor so promptly re- 
paired. Especially on the present occasion was it 
important to wait, and we should infallibly have 
caught Prussia in straits. On that day we should 
have had on our side the whole of exasperated South 
Germany ; Austria would have been compelled to 
declare herself; England would have been favorable 
instead of furious, and there would have been, withal, a 
means of restraining Russia. Until then our proper 
course was to live on from day to day, to settle all 
difficulties that might arise, and to atone for our 
mistakes by patience. 

Far from that, without even desiring war, we began 
with an absurd outburst. Then we retreated, hoping 
that Prussia would not too keenly feel our sally, and 
that England, the usual arbitrator, would arrange all. 
I interposed to advise prudence and frank acceptance 
of Prussia's concession, — a concession which was 



The Empire (iSSj-iSyo). 171 

inevitable, that power having put itself in the wrong. 
My advice was accepted, and all was promised me. 
At this moment our Government had passed from 
arrogance to fear, and desired but one thing, — 
the relinquishment of the HohenzoUern candidature. 
The anxiously awaited news arrived, and in . his joy 
M. OUivier hastened to the Chamber. Reaching the 
lobby at the same moment, I said to him that we 
ought to be satisfied. "Yes, yes," he repHed, "the 
affair is settled." On the instant the Bonapartists, 
who think to regain power if the Empire recovers its 
prestige, set up howls of wrath, not in the Hall of 
Sessions, but in the lobbies, where all this took place. 
The outcry was furious. I said to M. Ollivier and 
his colleagues, " Stand firm ; do not be afraid, and 
we will back you up." That afternoon a Cabinet 
Council was held. For war, M. Leboeuf, drunk with 
ambition; M. Rigault de Genouilly, hesitating, but 
finally joining his coUeague-at-arms ; and M. de Gra- 
mont. The five others were for peace. But the 
strident voice of the war-party had been heard at 
the Tuileries. The five men of peace became cowed, 
and devised a compromise between peace and war ; 
that is, the requirement of pledges from the King 
of Prussia. And what pledges ! I straightway told 
the Ministers that they had at one stroke sacrificed 
France, humanity, and good policy. They thought 
not, and promised to be moderate. I persisted in 
deeming everything lost, and unhappily I was right. 
Meanwhile, however, the others begged me to place 
myself at their head, and promised to be very brave. 



172 Thiers. 

Alas ! the poor men were incapable of courage ! The 
famous story of the outrage to France arrived from 
Berlin ; Ministers and Ministerialists seized upon it, 
cried that France was insulted, war necessary ; and so 
the famous sitting of July 15 took place. Upon the 
reading of the Ollivier Manifesto, there were whoops 
as of drunken savages ; everybody was terrified. I 
arose, moved by one of the most unpremeditated 
impulses that ever sprang from an honest heart. I 
was greeted with howls of rage; but, as you saw, 
I held my ground to the end. 

What will come of this accumulation of futiKties, 
weaknesses, and folhes, I cannot foretell. We must 
earnestly desire victory ; but victory, if it saves our 
territory, will take away our liberty. Our condition 
is therefore lamentable ; for in any event we have 
something very precious to lose. I am not disturbed 
by the storm that has burst upon me ; one cannot be 
a good citizen at less cost. 

The cruel days came apace. How many 
indifferent ones must have regretted sacrificing 
the safeguards of a free country, and abandon- 
ing themselves ! It was quickly perceived that 
the warlike preparation, of which so much was 
made, which seemed the sufficient reason for 
declaring war, was a mere pitfall. To what end 
this precipitancy, this unwillingness to listen to 
any explanation, to communicate any despatch, 
if not in order to gain some days upon the 



The Empire (i86j-i8yo). 173 

surprised Prussians ? The Emperor himself — 
before whom the well-known phrase, " We are 
ready ! " had been repeated for years, and who, 
in spite of a painful disease, felt it necessary to 
go to the front — was greatly astonished at not 
having to set out at once. He had prepared 
to leave St. Cloud the day after the session, 
and his departure was delayed from day to day ! 
He is said to have been greatly disturbed by 
this, and to have remarked to one of those who 
accompanied him to the army, " There are mo- 
ments when I fear that M. Thiers was right." 

M. Thiers was only too much in the right. 
He was himself surprised at the condition of 
the armament and of the army, when, after 
having done everything to avert the war, he 
endeavored to give some advice as to its con- 
duct. He occupied himself with the matter 
at first merely by the authority which expe- 
rience gave him, afterward officially. The 
circumstances of his taking office are little 
known. On the i8th of August, the Empress 
intrusted M. Merimee — who was already 
suffering with the malady of which he was 
so soon to die — with a delicate negotiation. 
She wished to see M. Thiers, to ask his ad- 
vice and assistance, — about what, she did not 
say, — and she promised him her entire con- 
fidence. Thiers kindly and firmly refused. 



1 74 Thiers. 

** Why should I see her? This is calling a phy- 
sician when the case has become desperate ! " 
" But what if she should publicly summon you ? " 
"I could not refuse to obey, but my language 
would be the same ; and such a fruitless step would 
only advertise our extremity without alleviating it. 
My conditions would be such as these : the abdica- 
tion of the Emperor ; the concentration of our forces 
at Paris ; the decision to fight the decisive battle 
under the shadow of the fortifications, and to arm 
the whole population. Even then I could not 
promise to attempt a desperate enterprise without 
knowing what resources I might have at my 
disposal." 

What especially struck Thiers in the con- 
versation was that Merimee did not blench at 
the word " abdication." To such a pass had 
the most devoted friends of the Imperial 
regime been brought in the course of a few 
days ! That evening a note from Merimee 
informed Thiers that the Empress understood 
his motives, and desired only that he should 
be assured that she had thought of him in 
perfect good faith. She did not, however, 
give up her plan. A renewed negotiation 
was undertaken by Prince Richard de Metter- 
nich, the result of which was that M. Thiers 
was by decree appointed a member of the 
Council of Defence. Still he would not ac- 



The Empire (1863-18^0). 175 

cept, unless the nomination was confirmed 
by the Corps Legislatif. This confirmation 
was made by acclamation. He whom they 
had insulted, a month earlier, as a false 
prophet, whom they would willingly have 
stoned as a traitor, now saw his greatest foes 
bow before his authority, implore his advice, 
question him as an oracle. The whole nation 
seemed to look for help to him alone. 

Fresh chagrins and struggles awaited him 
in this Council. He saw the wretchedness 
that was hidden under the Imperial purple; 
he opposed, with passionate urgency, the 
measures that deprived Paris of its garrison, 
and the movement of Marshal MacMahon 
which was to end in the disaster of Sedan. 
Seeing the inutility of his efforts, he was a 
hundred times on the point 01 resignmg; but 
this would have weakened the defence, and he 
stood at his post to the end. When, after the 
defeat, the Emperor's dethronement was called 
for in the Corps Legislatif, Thiers' moderation 
led him to propose a softer word, that of a 
" vacancy of the throne," in order to spare 
the dignity of those who had not spared his. 
Instead of immediately discussing this and 
other propositions, the Chamber stood upon 
form, and the deputies, not perceiving that 
time pressed, retired to the committee-rooms. 



176 Thiers. 

Meantime the news of the disaster spread 
outside, and the public crowded toward the 
Chamber. In his deposition before the Com- 
mittee of Inquiry, Sept 17, 1871, Thiers 
described the situation as follows : — 

" The Empire had aroused such indignation by 
the woes it had brought upon the land, that no one 
felt sorry for its fall or thought of keeping it in 
power. Its own partisans took part, without resist- 
ance, in this singular scene. Those partisans of the 
Empire, so dejected then, are on their feet again 
to-day, complaining of their overthrow, alleging that 
France was smitten in their person. But why did 
they not then resist } Why did they not make a 
single effort to impede that spontaneous Revolution ? 
For a good reason : because there was not a single 
person, even among them, who dreamed of saving 
the Empire. Violence there was none. The depu- 
ties walked about, mingling with a crowd of well- 
dressed people, who addressed us by name, and 
kept repeating to me, ' Monsieur Thiers, get us out 
of this ! ' " 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE WAR, 

THE Republic was proclaimed by the 
masses without resistance. From the 
4th of September the Government was ex- 
tinct. It was hardly a revolution, — the pub- 
lic merely accepted facts as they stood. That 
these facts were not regularly established is, 
however, to be regretted. Though the Corps 
Legislatif had hardly any more right than 
any other concourse of citizens to fix upon 
a course of action, nevertheless it should have 
been permitted to appoint a Government of 
National Defence and to convoke the electors. 
But hardly any one thought of such a thing. 
The deputies of Paris accepted summary in- 
vestiture from the multitude and dissolved 
the Corps Legislatif. Thiers could not con- 
sent to take part in a Government thus im- 
provised, but he did not think the Corps 
Legislatif in a position to interfere. In a 
sitting held that same evening in one of the 
halls of the Bourbon Palace, he confined him- 



I y8 Thiers. 

self to remarking with some irony that it 
was not for the servants of the Empire to 
invoke the sanctity of the popular mandate, 
and that every one would do well to forget 
all but the defence of the national soil. This 
was his first and sole preoccupation. 

The proclamation of the Republic was a 
surprise to no one. For a long time past it 
had been impossible for any one to think that 
any other Government could succeed the 
Empire. Could this Government immedi- 
ately make peace? It would have been very 
desirable to leave the whole responsibility for 
our sufferings with the Emperor. But the 
enemy, after his first successes, had deter- 
mined not to retire empty-handed ; and any 
one who had at that time suggested a treaty 
involving the cession of Strasburg, the de- 
fence of which still continued, would have 
been deemed a coward or insane. No sig- 
natures at the foot of a diplomatic paper 
would have availed against the popular 
wrath. Even those whose forebodings of the 
future were gloomiest did not for a moment 
think of laying down their arms. Moreover, 
Paris still remained, — Paris fortified by the 
efforts of Thiers, Paris which, from being the 
revolutionary capital of France, might and 
should be transformed into its citadel; and 



The War. 179 

men loved to think that so long as Paris was 
ours, France could not be regarded as con- 
quered. It was to the preparations for this 
defence that Thiers now expected to devote 
himself. 

This austere and modest dream was broken 
by a visit from M. Jules Favre, Minister of 
Foreign Affairs, who proposed to Thiers a 
mission abroad. The entire Government, in- 
cluding M. Rochefort, requested him to visit 
the principal cabinets of Europe, and to urge 
upon them the reasons why they could not 
afford to allow the equilibrium of the world 
to be overset by the fall of France and by 
the menace of a universal monarchy. Could 
he not awaken in some quarters the remem- 
brance of services rendered, inform the na- 
tions concerning the state of France, prove 
that she was not destined to perish, favorably 
represent the new Republic, obtain the good- 
will and even the support of neutral powers ? 
His antecedents, his fame, his energetic op- 
position to the war, his knowledge of politics 
and of men, marked him out as the only man 
capable of undertaking such a mission. Not- 
withstanding his seventy-three years, notwith- 
standing his wish and his right to have nothing 
to do with a war so wrongly undertaken, he 
decided to accept. To represent a suppliant 



1 80 Thiers. 

and defeated France after having for a lifetime 
desired to see her strong and proud, after 
having enhanced and celebrated her military- 
glory, was very painful. But he gave himself 
wholly to the stricken land, unmindful that 
she might again prove ungrateful. 

There was no time to hesitate. The very 
next day Paris was to be shut in, and behind 
the train that carried him to Calais on the 
1 2th of September, the engineers blew up 
Creil bridge in order to delay the march of 
the Prussians. He began with England. The 
English, in whom coldness is no sign of ill- 
will, were gradually becoming favorable to us. 
Thiers found this friendly feeling very marked 
among the people of all nations. Everywhere, 
in the railway-stations, in the streets, in the 
hotels, touching evidences of fellowship ap- 
peared in men's words, in their faces, in their 
eyes often filled with tears; and thus the bitter- 
ness of the journey was mitigated. Govern- 
ments were not blind to this popular sympathy, 
and refusals which wrung the heart were 
couched in the kindest terms. This amenity 
could not have been more perfectly felt and 
expressed than by Her Majesty's amiable 
Minister of Foreign Affairs. Lord Granville, 
so French in turn of mind, in tastes and habits, 
received Thiers as a friend. But neither he 



The War. i8i 

nor Mr. Gladstone would make any promises 
that they could not keep. Of armed inter- 
vention on the part of England there could 
be no question, but only of good offices ; and 
even in these the English deemed it not wise 
to take the initiative. But they promised to 
recognize the new Government as soon as 
an Assembly could be convoked to give it a 
legal existence. This had been their custom 
after each one of our revolutions, even that of 
December 2d (185 1); and as the Imperial 
policy had never given them any security, 
they had no especial reason to regret the 4th 
of September. The opinion of the British 
Cabinet was that any initiative must proceed 
from Russia ; and they felt that if Tsar Alex- 
ander were to pronounce favorably, they might 
themselves venture upon something more than 
fair words. This was not only the opinion of 
the English, but also that of the Russian Am- 
bassador, M. de Brunnow, an astute old gen- 
tleman well disposed toward us, who believed 
that a visit from Thiers would effect wonders 
with Prince Gortschakoff and the Tsar. 

From London to St. Petersburg the way is 
long. The sea was patrolled by German ships 
which would have liked to capture an impor- 
tant emissary; and even had he escaped them, 
how could he pass a week without news from 



1 82 Thiers, 

home, and reach Russia absolutely ignorant 
of the situation? On the other hand, the land 
journey around Prussia was difficult; but it was 
upon this that he decided. A light ship had 
been sent him, — the same that Prince Napo- 
leon had used for his voyages. The passage 
from London to Cherbourg was made in twenty- 
four hours, and he immediately took the train 
for Tours, where he arrived somewhat behind 
time the next morning. The preceding train 
had suffered the serious accident, near Mettray, 
wherein several persons perished, — notably 
M. Jules Duval, the well-known editor of the 
" Journal des Debats.'* 

In a few hours Thiers was informed touch- 
ing the military situation by Admiral Fourri- 
chon, Minister of War. Paris was not entirely 
blockaded, but the Prussians were constantly 
advancing, without meeting any serious resist- 
ance. Even with the French Ministers, Thiers 
did not forget his mission. It was almost as 
difficult to convince them of the necessity of 
convoking an Assembly, as to prevail upon 
foreign governments to preserve the European 
balance of power. They acceded, however, to 
the plan of elections for the 2d of October, — 
elections which were so often to be postponed ; 
and Thiers set out again in the afternoon in 
the hope of soon representing, not merely a 



The War. 183 

government born of a popular uprising, but an 
Assembly based upon universal sufifrage. 

Station after station flashed by the rushing 
train ; at the least halt the whole population 
crowded about to ask the news, to relate their 
sorrows, to express their hopes for the suc- 
cess of the mission, Thiers' emotion was such 
that he was sometimes unable to reply. The 
next day the frontier was passed, and after 
crossing Mont Cenis, — for the tunnel was not 
completed, — he set foot upon Italian soil. The 
little town of Susa, which he reached Wednes- 
day, September 21, at seven o'clock in the 
evening, was in gala array, and, a little later, 
illuminated. For the Italian troops had en- 
tered Rome ! That day Italian unity had 
been achieved without a conflict and almost 
without a blow. The Italians exhibited none 
the less demonstrative sympathy for France 
and for her envoy. This was, however, no 
time to ask Victor Emmanuel's Ministers for 
political or military support. So Thiers did 
not stop at Turin, at Milan, at Venice, or at 
Nabresina, but went straight through to Vienna, 
where he had an interview with Count von 
Beust, Chancellor of the Austro-Hungarian 
Empire. This conversation, and that upon 
Thiers' return, are related by Beust in his 
agreeable " Memoirs." It was hardly to be 



1 84 Thiers. 

expected that Austria, conquered by us in 1859 
and by Prussia in 1866, would be much dis- 
posed to meddle in the bloody struggle of her 
two adversaries. Nevertheless, Minister Gra- 
mont, in the sitting of July 15, had said or 
implied that France might count upon an 
Austrian alliance. The Chancellor had no 
difficulty in showing that nothing, either in his 
words or in his despatches, had authorized such 
an assertion, and that he had done everything 
to explain this to the minister. He afterward 
stated the same thing in print. But he was no 
enemy of a country to which he was allied by 
the graces of his mind, and he lamented his 
powerlessness. He expressed his regrets to 
Thiers, adding that the latter would receive 
throughout Europe, and especially in Italy, fair 
words and nothing more. " Oh ! " said Thiers 
sadly, " I have not been spoiled ! " ^ The Aus- 
trians were very hostile to the fallen Emperor. 
In the lively streets of the handsome city was 
everywhere to be seen a caricature representing 
Napoleon kneeling repentant before Thiers, 
who, in the character of the Pythoness, was 
saying : " Wretch ! did I not tell you that there 
was not a blunder left to be committed? " 

He made the run of sixty hours from Vienna 
to St. Petersburg without stopping. He was 
1 Memoire du comte de Beust, iii. 350. 



The War. 185 

in haste to see Prince Gortschakoff, who 
seemed to hold the key of the situation. The 
latter had indeed spoken in no very assuring 
manner to M. de Saint- ValHer on the day of 
the Gramont declaration. But times were 
changed ; France was no longer that haughty 
and mischief-making Empire whose humilia- 
tion was seen without regret; and even those 
who did not pity our misfortunes might be dis- 
turbed by the success of a power no less dan- 
gerous and turbulent. In default of material 
support, Thiers felt that Russia would at least 
entertain a sincere desire for peace. The 
Chancellor could not be insensible to the com- 
pliment paid him in this long journey. Every 
diplomatist is by nature or art something of a 
Frenchman, and none can be insensible to 
the advantage of pleasing a distinguished 
Frenchman. Moreover, Thiers was not simply 
making this journey in his own name ; he rep- 
resented the Republic, and the sentiments of 
this government were to be inferred from its 
choice of an Ambassador. France's strength 
was still considerable and its resistance still 
vigorous. The inhabitants of Paris were con- 
ducting themselves like heroic soldiers in a 
beleaguered citadel. Would not Prince Gort- 
schakoff be tempted to aid in this uprising 
of a great nation, and to countenance some 



1 86 Thiers. 

measure leading to a truce and to the forma- 
tion of an Assembly, either in order to resume 
relations upon a securer basis, or in order to 
bring about a treaty which was desired by 
neutrals and was perhaps necessary to the bel- 
ligerents, and which might result in a peace of 
some solidity? The Tsar would have no ob- 
jections, and whatever might have been said, 
would not hesitate to treat with the Republic, 
He had little regret for Napoleon III., to whom 
he attributed the disagreeable incidents of his 
visit to Paris in 1867. Provided that the Gov- 
ernment which was to succeed were peaceable 
and lasting, the Tsar would not too closely scru- 
tinize the etiquette of the arrangement. At bot- 
tom, all the sovereigns of Europe think of France 
as a Republic for the last hundred years. 

Thiers discussed the means and the end in 
several interviews, which resulted in the Tsar's 
offer to write personally to the king of Prussia, 
asking him to authorize M. Thiers to repair to 
his headquarters and to treat for an armistice 
intended to facilitate the election of an Assem- 
bly. This was accepted, subject of course to 
the consent of the French Government, which 
could be obtained only at Tours and at Paris. 

Again Thiers had to cross those broad, 
silent steppes and to traverse Poland, whose 
affection for France was so touching. At 



The War. 187 

Vienna, he found Count Beust still of the same 
opinion. At Florence, he had an interview 
with King Victor Emmanuel, whom he found 
extremely French in manner, in conversation, 
and in heart, but restrained by his subjects and 
by his Parliament. The king had also conceived 
a plan of peaceable intervention, and had im- 
parted it to the British Cabinet, which, even 
before the Tsar's despatch passed over the 
wires, had proposed to the neutral powers a 
common intervention. Thus four powers ad- 
vised the Armistice, and Bismarck accepted 
the negotiation. 

Thiers now had only to return to Tours in 
order to confer with the Delegation. This he 
did forthwith. A change had taken place in 
his mind : in the first days of the war he put 
away all thought of participation in this cruel 
peace ; he felt that he had no right to attach 
his name to any of the results of an enterprise 
he had so urgently opposed. Little by little 
he came to feel that peace would be a relative 
good, and would put an end to these terri- 
ble calamities. His imagination grew familiar 
with the thought of employing his credit in 
Europe for the deliverance of his country, 
which, thanks to his efforts, might have to pay 
a smaller price for peace. But on his return 
to France he found a different disposition ; or 



1 88 Thiers, 

rather he had been sent out from Paris by the 
peace party, and now had to negotiate at Tours 
with the war party. M. Gambetta, full of gen- 
erous illusions, was imparting his own fire to a 
great number of the citizens and of the army ; 
and this he could not do without holding out 
the hope of victory, without seeking to inspire 
a horror of the sacrifices which must be the 
price of peace. The violence of his proclama- 
tions, perhaps inevitable in the circumstances, 
seemed to render impossible the opening of a 
negotiation. But beneath Gambetta's decla- 
mation was concealed a sagacious and sensible 
mind. He understood the necessity for the 
proposed step, though he wished that it might 
not succeed, and that a chance might still be 
left for delivering France by force of arms. 
Finally, on the 28th of October, Thiers was 
able to leave Tours for Paris by way of Ver- 
sailles, the seat of the German headquarters. 
This journey was still more painful than that 
from which he had just returned, since it was 
necessary to cross our devastated fields under 
the escort of the invaders. 

It was in the Bishop of Orleans' pastoral 
coach, drawn by German artillery teams, that 
the negotiator, after two days' journey, reached 
Versailles, where, as at Orleans, great placards 
in the German language announced the sur- 



The War. 189 

render of Marshal Bazaine and enumerated the 
number of cannon captured and the number of 
French soldiers sent to Germany. The num- 
ber of the latter reached four hundred thou- 
sand ! Such a success could not but render 
our conquerors terribly exacting, not as to 
their territorial claims, which had from the time 
of their first victories been excessive, but as 
to the other conditions of the Armistice. If the 
Government at Paris would, like the Delega- 
tion at Tours, authorize negotiations looking 
toward this Armistice, several considerations 
might determine the Prussians to accept it. 
First, willingness to satisfy the neutral powers, 
which, either through humanity or through 
policy, desired the end of the war; secondly, 
the advantage to the victors themselves of 
having to do with a recognized Government 
capable of negotiating in the name of France 
and of putting an end to the siege of Paris ; 
thirdly, the well-grounded fear of the new 
armies which were everywhere forming; 
fourthly, the very serious dissensions among 
the confederated German nations, some of 
which did not conceal their desire for peace. 
But the best argument of the negotiator would 
still have been the resistance of Metz, where 
our best troops had kept a whole German 
army-corps from moving. 



1 90 Thiers. 

On reaching Versailles, Thiers had nothing 
to do but obtain from Bismarck permission to 
pass the outposts and enter Paris. Bismarck 
understood that there could be no negotiation 
until the powers of the negotiator had been 
confirmed by the Government, for the Minis- 
ters at Tours were only a Delegation. " We 
shall discuss matters upon your return, if you 
return," said Bismarck ; "for we are informed 
that a new revolution is brewing at Paris, and 
there may be danger in your going there." 

The trip from Versailles to Sevres was made 
in the same carriage, which the Prussian offi- 
cer halted at the head of the Grande-Rue. He 
informed M. Thiers that he was about to de- 
scend in order to make the necessary signals 
to stop a firing which was doing no great 
harm, but was making a great deal of noise. 
This street of Sevres was especially exposed 
to the bombs of Mt. Valerien. " You will 
have to wait a little while," said the officer, 
" until the signals are understood and the 
firing entirely ceases." " In France," replied 
Thiers, gallantly, " we make no diff"erence as 
to courage between soldiers and civilians;" 
and he descended to the high bank of the 
Seine. Soon a boat manned by a single 
French soldier pushed off from the opposite 
bank and crossed the river, — for Sevres 



The War. 191 

bridge had been destroyed. As the little red- 
trousered infantry-man coolly rowed them 
across, while the bombs shrieked above their 
heads, Thiers said to his companion, who 
held the tiller, " Do you know what I should 
call the picturesque in history? The crush- 
ing by a French bomb of this skiff which 
bears deliverance and peace to the Parisians ! " 
Thiers was greatly moved upon entering 
Paris, as were those who received him and 
heard from his ],ips the news from the rest of 
France. The whole evening, almost the whole 
night, was passed in conversations which re- 
sulted in the acceptance of the Armistice on the 
part of the Paris Government. The capital had 
gloriously resisted. In the opinion of those who 
had fortified it in 1840, Paris was not a citadel 
intended to defend itself to the last morsel 
of bread, but rather a vast intrenched camp 
suited to serve as a shelter to an army. But 
army there was none. At the decisive mo- 
ment Marshal MacMahon had marched into 
the ambush at Sedan, instead of retiring under 
the walls of the capital. Paris could never 
raise the siege herself, the army at Metz had 
just been lost, and it was almost demonstrated 
that the soldiers of the provinces, though they 
might gain some isolated advantages, would 
never be able to break the iron band that 



192 Thiers. 

encompassed Paris for thirty leagues. How 
could a wise Government have refused the 
Armistice which, without any weak concession 
on the part of the besieged, leaving matters 
in statu quo, would permit France and even 
Paris to elect deputies and thus to be regu- 
larly represented? If, then, the war should 
be continued, the capital would be a httle 
refreshed for her courageous sacrifice, the pro- 
vincial conscripts would have had a month 
in which to drill, sympathetic Europe would 
have become more interested in us, and the 
German Confederates would have had an op- 
portunity to quarrel. 

It was evident very early the following 
morning that the population of Paris was 
aroused and irritated. In the evening we 
had suffered a reverse at the village of Bour- 
get, after a success the importance of which 
had been exaggerated ; and now the cry of 
treason was raised, — the usual resource of 
vanity. The capitulation of Metz, having 
been announced by a newspaper before it 
occurred, had been very properly denied by 
the Minister, who was now compelled to pub- 
lish it, and was therefore accused of falsehood. 
Wild rumors of the negotiation circulated 
through the crowds of people enervated by 
the sufferings of the siege. There was evi- 



The War. 193 

dently to be what the Parisians call a day 
{joiirnee), — the 31st of October, — and Thiers 
ran a serious risk of realizing Bismarck's pre- 
diction, and of becoming a prisoner of the 
mob rather than of the enemy. This would 
have been awkward for the negotiation; and 
since, after all, the Government seemed capa- 
ble of putting down the insurrection, since all 
was agreed upon, since it was important to 
put an end to all these painful scenes, since he 
could at any time return, he determined to 
proceed at once to Versailles. 

Bismarck did not peremptorily refuse Thiers' 
propositions, but entered into the discussion 
of details, not always in his own name, but 
in the name of the military party, and of the 
king, whom he represented as more exacting 
than himself. The greatest difficulty was 
that of the revictualling. An Armistice of 
a month, with the exclusion of supplies from 
Paris, would have been equivalent to another 
month of siege, and the conclusion of it would 
find us weaker than at the beginning. If, on 
the contrary, cattle and vegetables were 
shipped to the capital, such a month of re- 
pose would be a great advantage to us. This 
was the principal point at issue; for Thiers 
was bound to resist the wiles of the Chancel- 
lor, who was ready to yield much if his inter- 
13 



1 94 Thiers. 

locutor would treat of definitive peace. " You 
are a publisher of books," said he to Thiers, 
" and I am quite willing to treat with you 
concerning the first volume, the Armistice, if 
you can promise me the second, which is 
Peace." Thiers had no right to undertake 
this second negotiation ; he was invested with 
no real power. He was merely intrusted with 
a very special mission by the Government of 
the National Defence, which itself had no 
ulterior powers. 

On the other hand, it was but natural that 
Bismarck should wish to profit by his inter- 
views with a man so considerable, to go beyond 
this, and to prepare at least the groundwork of 
a treaty. In spite of so many victories, — by 
reason of them indeed, — this treaty appeared 
a difficult one to conclude, and the Chancellor 
foresaw great perplexities in the task of recon- 
ciling the claims of the Prussian military party 
with the just pride of the French people. It 
was to be expected that our misfortunes would 
abate this pride ; but at that time this remark- 
able saying of Bismarck was quoted. " All 
this is very fine, is it not?" said he to a Ger- 
man general after Sedan, " but it will make 
peace very difficult ! " It was to almost the 
same eff"ect that Victor Hugo afterward said : 
" Henceforward there will be two formidable 



The War. 195 

nations, — the one because victorious, the 
other because vanquished." 

Three days had passed in discussions which 
seemed about to terminate, when on Thursday 
Bismarck seemed less inchned to treat, and said 
abruptly to Thiers : " Are you sure that you 
represent even the Revolutionary Government 
of the Defence? The report comes from the 
outposts that a new revolution took place at 
Paris on tl^,3ist of October, that the Jacobin 
party was vicf'tbrious, and that the Government 
of the National Defence is overthrown. Have 
I the honor to treat with the representative of 
M. Felix Pyat and his friends? " 

Disturbed by this unforeseen and tardy com- 
munication, Thiers obtained authorization from 
the Chancellor to send to Paris for authentic 
information. He then learned that the Minis- 
try presided over by General Trochu had been 
captured at the Hotel de Ville, and afterward 
delivered by the courage and presence of mind 
of Messrs. Picard and Ferry. The next day 
this Government submitted its claims to a kind 
of plebiscite. The powers of the Government 
of Defence were indeed confirmed, but only 
after a promise to entertain no propositions 
of peace. 

Although the news still justified Thiers in 
negotiating, his authority was sensibly dimin- 



1 96 Thiers, 

ished, and the more since a proclamation very- 
hostile to peace and even to negotiation ema- 
nated at the same juncture from Gambetta. 
All this made the Prussians more arrogant. 
Not only would they not concede the necessary 
quantity of provisions, but they demanded the 
surrender of a fort as a pledge of good faith. 
To give up a fort was to give up Paris at the 
termination of the Armistice, in case peace 
should not then be concluded. A Govern- 
ment might subscribe to such a condition, but 
a negotiator scarcely assured of his powers 
was bound to refuse even to discuss it. Thiers 
therefore claimed the right to refer the matter 
to the Paris Government. " I consent," said 
Bismarck, " but more than last week you run 
the risk of being detained ; and you ask of us 
a great sacrifice, for they pay less and less 
attention, at Paris, to the trumpet and the flag 
of truce ; each letter costs us a man." All 
risks were, however, to be taken in the in- 
terests of a negotiation that might check 
further bloodshed. Thiers returned to Paris 
by way of Sevres ; but the Ministers, fearing 
a new tumult, gave him rendezvous at Billan- 
court. There, in an abandoned house, he 
found M. Jules Favre and General Ducrot 
Both, especially the latter, declared that neither 
the Government nor the City, at best scarcely 



The War. 197 

favorable to a clearly advantageous armistice, 
could entertain a thought of the proposed 
one, the inevitable upshot of which would be 
peace. The Government therefore begged M. 
Thiers to throw up the negotiation and to 
leave the German headquarters. 

He again made his way to Versailles and 
then to Tours, whence he sent to the neutral 
powers an account of his mission in a despatch 
which has been published. He could now do 
nothing but watch the course of events with 
anxiety, for he placed little trust in Gambetta's 
improvised armies, officered as they were by 
novices, the experienced officers being for the 
most part prisoners in Germany. Under the 
Empire, the effective strength of the regiments 
had been so slight that an undue proportion 
of officers had been sent to the front. As 
Thiers put it, " they had undertaken to wage 
war with cadres." 

No considerable success came to give lustre 
to our arms. That unbroken line of defeats 
and disasters gave the lie to all the common- 
places about the inconstancy of Fortune. 
Paris, noble Paris, so guilty in other days, now 
alone sometimes gave us those thrills of patri- 
otic joy which had once SQemed to us the 
necessary accompaniment of every war. But 
the capital saved naught but her honor, and 



1 98 Thiers. 

when, in January, 1871, she was obliged by 
starvation to surrender, all hope disappeared 
with her. The Government was obliged to treat, 
not only for the city but for all France, and 
to agree to a truce for the election of deputies. 
The elections passed off more quietly than 
was to be expected, and the Assembly which 
came together at Bordeaux on the 13th of 
February, exactly represented the sentiment 
of the nation at that particular moment. 
France being eager for peace, the Assembly 
was pacific. It was also somewhat unrepub- 
lican, for the Republic had been represented 
in the provinces only by Gambetta, the pro- 
moter of war to the knife, who had sacrificed 
the interests of the Republic to what he con- 
ceived to be the interests of the national honor. 
Politics had, in truth, been little thought of, 
and Thiers was elected in twenty-seven de- 
partments upon very diverse tickets, rather on 
account of his opposition to the war and his 
efforts in favor of peace than on account of his 
fame as a liberal orator and historian. Moved 
by the same impulse, the Assembly almost 
unanimously appointed him Chief of the Ex- 
ecutive Power of the French Republic, and 
intrusted to him the double task of governing 
the country and of treating with the German 
Emperor. 



The War. 199 

Thus began a new phase of his restless ex- 
istence. Fate bestowed upon him in the 
dedine of life the highest fortune, and the 
opportunity to display his rarest powers in the 
performance of new services to his country. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 

" "r\ERIVING authority from his capacity and 
-Ly acknowledged worth, being also a man of 
transparent integrity, Pericles was able to control the 
multitude in a free spirit ; he led them rather than 
was led by them ; for, not seeking power by dis- 
honest arts, he had no need to say pleasant things, 
but, on the strength of his own high character, could 
venture to oppose and even to anger them. When 
he saw them unseasonably elated and arrogant, his 
words humbled and awed them ; and when they 
were depressed by groundless fears, he sought to 
reanimate their confidence. Thus Athens, though 
still in name a democracy, was in fact ruled by her 
greatest citizen." ^ 

These words may be taken as a faithful 
expression of Thiers' historic character as 
Chief Magistrate. He was really our first 
citizen, and it was as such that he was asked 
to discuss terms of peace with Bismarck, — 
"that barbarian of genius," as Thiers called 
. 1 Thucydides, ii. Ixv. Jowett's version. 



The Third Republic. 201 

him. It is well known what efforts Thiers was 
compelled to make in order to preserve to 
France the city of Belfort, which had been 
singled out in advance as German prey. It is 
also matter of history how this inevitable and 
painful peace was ratified by the Assembly, 
after one of the most touching speeches ever 
pronounced by a patriot. 

• It was apparently in the name of the Re- 
public that peace was negotiated and the 
Government gradually reconstructed. This 
Government had been proclaimed on the 4th 
of September; in its name Gambetta had 
raised armies and convoked electors ; and 
Thiers, when proclaimed Chief of the Execu- 
tive Power, had, at the instance of M. Dufaure, 
who made this the condition of accepting a 
portfolio, desired that the title should read, 
" Chief of the Executive Power of the French 
Republic.'^ Moreover, in the nature of things, 
as Moliere observes, whatever is not prose is 
verse, — where there is neither king nor em- 
peror there must be a republic. The As- 
sembly, however, which was all-powerful, held 
that to change the form of government was 
one of its rights. It might have been urged 
that the electors had scarcely contemplated 
this, and that the Monarchists were in the 
majority simply because they represented 



202 Thiers. 

peace, while in the provinces the Repubhc had 
meant nothing but war to the hilt. But these 
distinctions were not thought of in the press 
of more urgent business, namely, the treaty 
which was to check the shedding of blood, and 
the rudiments of administrative reconstruction. 
No monarchy would have been willing to 
assume the responsibility of this Treaty; this 
the Monarchical Right thoroughly understood. 
The Right accordingly consented to accept 
the name of Republic as a makeshift, provided 
it should be talked about as little as possible. 

Thiers had come to think, especially since 
the beginning of the war, that the Republic 
was the natural heir of Napoleon III., and that 
it would at last be necessary to cross the ocean 
rather than the Channel. He saw that here 
only would a conservative policy find a solid 
groundwork whereon to build. He had, how- 
ever, been struck with the circumstance that 
so many Legitimists had been elected to the 
Assembly, and he was no more eager than they 
to stop to discuss constitutions when the Treaty 
was to be ratified and Paris, whence there 
came very alarming news, to be pacified. He 
was the more disposed to wait, inasmuch as he 
saw in the Chamber the very rapid formation 
and growth of a group in which he had great 
confidence. Of these deputies M. Jules Simon 



The Third Republic. 203 

has given a better definition than they could 
themselves formulate, — for this political phi- 
losopher has written a masterly history of 
these years.^ Differing with Thiers upon 
many points of constitutional theory or social 
economy, M. Simon was like him in three 
things that ought to suffice to bind men to- 
gether, — talent, courage, and zeal for the 
public welfare. Here is what Simon says of 
this party in the Assembly : — 

" There were in this body some five-score firm spirits 
who were alike incapable either of forsaking the prin- 
ciples whereon all society rests, or of giving up free- 
dom. Of all forms of government they would have 
preferred constitutional monarchy, had they found it 
established, or could they have restored it by a vote 
without resort to force. But they quickly perceived 
that neither the Legitimists nor the Bonapartists would 
consent to the constitutional form ; that such a mon- 
archy could obtain a majority neither in the Parlia- 
ment nor among the people ; that, both by its nature 
and by the disposition of its defenders, it would be 
happily incapable of recourse to violence ; and that 
the reappearance of the Legitimist party upon the 
political stage was a passing incident of little signifi- 
cance. Some of these men entertained for the Re- 
public a distrust which, at first, amounted to aversion. 
Being persuaded, however, that they must choose 

' Le gouvernement de M. Thiers, par Jules Simon. 2 vols. 
S™, Paris, 1878. 



204 Thiers. 

between the Republic and the Empire, and that the 
latter could never harmonize either with the princi- 
ples of right and justice or with freedom, they did 
not despair of forming a Republic at once liberal 
and conservative. In a word, they thrust aside the 
Legitimate Monarchy as chimerical, Republican and 
Csesarian dictatorship as alike hateful ; and while pre- 
ferring a liberal Monarchy to a moderate Republic, 
they saw no reason to resort to a revolution merely 
in order to make the Presidency of the Republic 
hereditary. Of this party M. Thiers was not merely 
the head, but the body also." 

This party, which was then very willing to 
realize what had been called the Liberal 
Union, thought, and still thinks, that republi- 
can ideas are merely the maximum of liberal 
ideas. Unfortunately, however, there are peo- 
ple who take fright at their ideas when they 
see them carried out. But there was another 
party which, although the least numerous in 
the Assembly and split into factions at that, 
was the most numerous in the country, — the 
Republican party. What could Thiers do to 
prevent these parties from " falling upon one 
another," to quote his own expression? Pre- 
cisely what he did do, with a consummate art 
not inconsistent with perfect sincerity. He 
said to the Royalists, " You have the power 
of making a Constitution, and it is very rea- 



The Third Republic. 205 

sonable in you to refrain from exercising that 
power ; " to the RepubHcans, " Peace is con- 
cluded, administration is reconstructed, the 
finances are restored, — all in the name and for 
the benefit of the Republic; definitive success 
will be with the most prudent." These things 
he said, not in secret conclaves, in private con- 
versations, but in the open Assembly, and not 
once but ten times. His chief care was to 
reassure the Republicans who might do him 
the injustice to suspect that, in the capacity 
of Head of the Republic, he was paving the 
way to a Restoration. He was thus obliged to 
promise at every turn that he would not betray 
the trust confided to him. Betray it to whom? 
Certainly not to the Monarchy of right divine, 
which he had always opposed, but rather to 
a combination midway between Republic and 
Monarchy, — a species of Orleanist Stadtholder- 
ship. This political and moral difficulty was 
greatly lessened by the conduct of the Orleans 
princes, who publicly declared that although 
they might have a claim, they had no right to 
govern, and who accepted the Republic to the 
extent of taking office under it. The chief 
among them, the Duke of Aumale, served the 
Republic usefully and nobly. None of them 
seemed to think that the House of Orleans 
should be anything more than a House of 



2o6 Thiers. 

Orange, contributing indifferently Revolution- 
ary kings and Republican magistrates. 

Thiers set forth his policy to the Assembly 
at Bordeaux, notably on the loth of March, 
1871, in language so clear and sincere that one 
is embarrassed to have to explain and justify 
it. Nevertheless, he found himself obliged to 
return to the subject more than once, and to 
repeat words which have received a glorious 
justification from events. A few hours after 
delivering this speech he returned to Paris, the 
Assembly having consented, at his request, to 
sit at Versailles. He found the capital in great 
commotion, and his efforts to destroy the last 
traces of the siege and the germs of civil 
strife were fruitless. He had neither an armed 
force, nor a civil administration, nor means of 
making his voice heard by a restless, irritated, 
inflamed population. The murders of Generals 
Lecomte and Clement Thomas were the sig- 
nals for the setting up of the Commune, which 
was to end as it had begun. What was to 
be done against an insurrection that had all 
the organization, all the resources, of a regu- 
lar army, — an army made up in large part 
of disbanded soldiery? Thiers took the bold 
course which he had on another occasion ad- 
vised : he transferred the seat of Government 
to Versailles, whither he betook himself on the 



The Third Republic. 207 

eve of the session of the Assembly. The best 
judges have thought this to be one of the hap- 
piest strokes of his practical genius. At all 
events, the Assembly was able to deliberate in 
peace, the Commune was put down, and order 
was restored. 

Readers of history who have not seen it in 
the making, may be surprised to learn that so 
great an achievement brought about little 
change in party feeling. The deputies who 
wished to substitute the Monarchy for the 
Republic saw in it an encouragement; the 
rest understood better that an insurrection 
raised in the name of the Republic could be 
put down only by the Republic herself. 
Some members of the Commune may really 
have thought the Government imperilled by 
the Monarchical majority in the Assembly. 
More than ever Thiers was compelled to 
prove himself no traitor to the Republic. 
The moderate Republicans were disarmed by 
his assurances, and if he did not bring over 
all the opponents of the Empire to his sup- 
port, he at least compelled all who were not 
foes of society to range themselves on the side 
of law. The partisans of authority, v/ho were 
barely respectful to his authority, held him 
strictly to account, so that he repeated at 
Versailles what he had said at Bordeaux, and 



2o8 Thiers. 

this with unwearied patience and inexhaustible 
variety of forms. The following words are 
from his speech of March 27, 1871 : — 

" There exist foes of society who repeat that we 
are preparing to overthrow the Republic. This 
I flatly and formally deny. They are deceiving 
France ; their aim is to disturb and arouse the 
country. We found the Republic already estab- 
lished, a fact of which we were not the authors. 
But I shall not destroy the form of government of 
which I now make use in order to restore order," 

Some days later, in full tide of war against 
the Commune, the Assembly decided, by a 
great majority, that the mayors of all the 
communes of France should be appointed 
by the municipal councils. In a time of tran- 
quillity this would have been justifiable ; but 
it was of doubtful wisdom at a juncture when 
the communes seemed about to rebel against 
the Central Power, when schemes of decen- 
tralization were rife, when decentralization was 
being carried to an absurd extreme by a fac- 
tion in the Chamber, and to a criminal extreme 
by the Commune of Paris. Thiers, who was 
a firm centralizer, found himself forced to 
defend the Republic by cannon against the 
Communists of Paris, and by the tongue 
against the decentralizers of Versailles. The 



The Third Republic. 209 

difference in arms marks the difference in the 
persons and their aims, but it is interesting 
to note how persistently men's minds were at 
that time haunted by such inappHcable or 
criminal ideas. It is worthy of note, also, that 
the very persons who urged this democratic 
method of electing the mayors, reproached 
Thiers with holding out too much hope to 
the delegates of the communes and of the 
great towns. 

These delegates, disturbed by the reports 
current in the provinces of preparations for 
a Monarchical Restoration, thronged the presi- 
dential anterooms. A month of dreadful sus- 
pense passed in the fear of a widespread 
insurrection that could not have been sup- 
pressed. This was escaped ; but Thiers was 
compelled to pledge himself still more ex- 
plicitly to the Republic, and to insist upon 
the Republican character of the Government. 
This attitude, the only reasonable and possible 
one, was becoming easier, for liberal and wise 
Republicans were beginning to rally loyally 
to the support of a Government which bore 
their colors, and by means of which they 
might hope to escape the still imminent reign 
of the anarchists. This feeling was shown 
in the Assembly by the change of the Chief 
Magistrate's title to that of President of the 
14 



2IO Thiers. 

Republic. In the interim, however, two great 
events had taken place: Thiers had restored 
order at Paris, and the complementary elec- 
tions of July had sent more than a hundred 
moderate Republicans to Versailles. 

Party strength had shifted, and the will of 
France had been clearly expressed. Those 
who had looked forward to the accession of 
the Count of Chambord saw with consterna- 
tion the growth of the conviction on the part 
of the enlightened classes that the Republic, 
which had been deemed impossible, was alone 
possible. The Head of this Republic was re- 
storing order, reconstructing the administra- 
tion, paying the war-contribution, giving to 
France a degree of freedom and repose which 
she had perhaps never known, — and all this 
in the name of that fragile power, the Bor- 
deaux Compact, which was little more than 
organized anarchy. Meanwhile, whenever a 
consequence of the President's efforts came 
to light, the Assembly was chary of its praise, 
and failed not to take a large portion of the 
credit to itself, — witness the sittings in which 
were announced the termination of the siege 
of Paris, the payment of an instalment of the 
national ransom, the conclusion of the various 
treaties, especially of the one which hastened 
by two years the evacuation of our territory. 



The Third Republic. 211 

France cherishes with sympathetic admira- 
tion the memory of this government, the freest 
that ever existed, founded in the midst of the 
greatest difficulties by the " first citizen." It 
would be interesting to forget his purely politi- 
cal r61e in order to speak of the man himself, 
or rather of all the men that were blended in 
him, making him so apt for government. M. 
Leon Say, his colleague and his friend, in an 
able and thoughtful address at the unveiling 
of one of the statues of Thiers, called him " a 
great financier." In this M. Say was indeed 
the echo of the public voice, but no one is bet- 
ter qualified to judge. Each of Thiers' Minis- 
ters m.ight have said as much touching his 
particular specialty. M. Hector Pessard, in 
his pleasant memoirs which he modestly calls 
" My Little Notes " (^Mes Petits Papier s^, has 
given the story of one of the President's well- 
filled days, in which Thiers appears occupied 
with everything, but finding time for intervals 
of sparkling conversation. He had the gift, so 
valuable to a ruler, of persuading every one to 
whom he gave an order or a counsel that the 
safety of the State depended upon its execution. 
And there was nothing touching which he did 
not command or advise. He was not content 
with commanding, — he followed to the end 
the execution of his orders. His Ministers 



212 Thiers. 

were well-chosen, for he was somewhat vain 
of having the most distinguished men about 
him, but they were not always sufficient 
for his purposes, and his zeal to have a hand 
in the business of all departments of the 
government knew no bounds. He had an 
ascendency over men that is not sufficiently 
explained by the superiority of his mind. His 
passionate insistence, his pressing urgency, his 
iron will, enabled him to carry his points even 
with the most obdurate. He overwhelmed 
them with a kind of violence, rather than won 
them by persuasion. When aroused upon a 
subject that interested him, — and when was 
he not so? — he made everything subserve 
his aim, whether that aim were financial, 
administrative, or military. 

The political aim was perhaps the one which 
he found most difficult to attain, in the Assem- 
bly at least, for the country was devoted to 
him. Between the deputies and Thiers there 
was from the first a certain antagonism hidden 
under apparent harmony. His policy of union 
was at bottom the true French policy, the 
policy recommended to Catholics and Protes- 
tants by Henry IV, after the capture of Paris. 
This system is a most opportune one when the 
State and society are to be restored in the 
teeth of parties ; but it is a peculiarly difficult 



The Third Republic. 213 

system in an Assembly, since an Assembly is 
by its very nature an arena for parties with their 
jealousies and their grudges. Thiers sincerely 
beheved that his ideas of order and conserva- 
tion ought to be a sufficient assurance to every 
right-minded man ; but even these ideas, when 
pressed into the service of the Republic, 
could scarcely find grace in the eyes of a 
Royalist Right. It has been said that his aim 
was to carry out the policy of the Right by 
means of the Left, but this is a course which 
the Conservative party seems least willing to 
tolerate. This party, like all parties, often 
prefers, in the Chambers if not in public, to 
become revolutionary rather than to relinquish 
power. It aims at exclusive dominion. Its 
honesty is quite compatible with the rancor- 
ous intolerance which sometimes converts vir- 
tue into fanaticism. It deems itself the only 
party upon which a government can rest. 
Such was Guizot's theory in his time, and 
Thiers had been looked upon with suspicion 
for upwards of thirty years because he would 
not subscribe to it. Under the Restoration, 
Martignac was abandoned because he made 
some members of the Left Centre members of 
his Ministry. In 1847, the Conservatives of 
the Chamber sacrificed the July Monarch/ for 
a similar reason; and in 1870 they preferred 



214 Thiers. 

to risk the war with Germany rather than 
submit longer to the Olhvier Ministry. 

Thiers' services to the conservative cause 
could not, therefore, win him the support of 
the opponents of his general policy. The 
applause of the Left was sufficient to complete 
the alienation of the Right. It is impossible 
to satisfy the passionate except by sharing 
their passions, and Thiers did not share them. 
There were days when he might have regained 
everything by speaking evil of the Republic, 
or by disobliging this or that Republican. 
He would not do it, and no right-minded 
person could blame him, for the Republican 
party behaved, on the whole, very wisely. It 
was indeed maintained that the Conservatives 
would be satisfied if he would but " cut off the 
tail " of this party. " But when the tail is cut 
off," said Thiers, " some one is always sure to 
pick it up and make a plume of it." 

As President of the Republic, he might have 
won over some of the opponents of his general 
policy by means of private conversation. This 
he sometimes attempted, his house being 
always open. But, absorbed as he was, how 
could he give time to the assiduous attentions 
of a parliamentary leader? He certainly re- 
ceived people amiably; but, without looking 
closely into the matter, he reckoned upon the 



The Third Republic. 215 

good-will of those who had cheerfully visited 
him or respectfully listened to him. He re- 
fused to make allowance for wounded sus- 
ceptibilities, and was inclined to attribute all 
censure to half a dozen malcontents. He 
habitually yielded to his faculty of seeing his 
own ideas with such plainness that any other 
view seemed a contemptible absurdity. By 
wounding his opponents he often transformed 
them into enemies, — even those who were 
not definitely hostile to him, but who merely 
found it difficult to accept his extreme personal 
share in a parliamentary government If, as 
has been asserted, it was a dictatorship, it was 
at least based upon persuasion. He was, how- 
ever, reproached with being, like Napoleon, 
not open to suggestions. This accusation he 
seems to have anticipated when he said in his 
speech of April 16, 1835 : "When a man is in 
such a position as to hear the truth only from 
those who have the courage to speak it, he 
hears it from very few people." 

But this President so absolute, so rude at 
times, had only to ascend the Tribune to 
become a model of simple grace, and to find 
a tone of persuasive sincerity which disarmed 
or embarrassed his enemies. If at times he 
gave way to his temper, he frightened them ; 
for the Assembly was swayed by the profound 



2 1 6 Thiers. 

conviction that he was a necessary man, first 
until the Insurrection was subdued, afterward 
until the territory was delivered. He had only 
to threaten to lay down his authority, in order 
to make everything bend before him. It is 
therefore comprehensible, if not excusable, 
that when the Assembly came to undertake 
the task of framing a Constitution, the first 
article of this Constitution was that they 
should close their ears to the charmer, and 
that Thiers should be, as far as possible, 
barred out of the French Tribune. 

It is not easy to forget the sight of that old 
man, worn by the toil of night and day, walk- 
ing up from the President's Palace with his 
alert step ; making his way to the front bench 
of that theatre glittering with mirrors and 
gold; sitting there muffled in cloaks, which 
were rendered necessary by his liability to be 
chilled by the drafts of that airy hall ; listening 
with a somewhat bantering mien to the speech 
of some deputy; then suddenly becoming 
aroused, obtaining the floor, and throwing off 
with a quick gesture the wraps that impeded 
the freedom of his movements. Never has 
modern society, in its nobly democratic phase, 
been better represented. And then, placing 
both hands upon the front of the Tribune, he 
would begin an exposition of his policy of 



The Third Republic. 217 

common-sense, or a course of instruction con- 
cerning the finances, the bank, the customs, 
the army, while now and then from this un- 
promising soil would spring, naturally and 
unexpectedly, some exquisite flower of Attic 
eloquence. The following passage, for ex- 
ample, occurs in the middle of a three hours' 
speech on recruitment (June 8, 1872), which 
contains more than one bit worthy to be 
quoted by the future historian : — 

" Take the honest man in our society. Upon at- 
taining manhood he takes a mate and becomes a 
father. What is his chief care? I speak of the 
honest man. It is by steady, skilful, honest toil to 
secure the welfare of his wife, his children, and him- 
self; and not merely present but future welfare. Such 
is the honest man. Sometimes even, if he sees a 
neighboring family in distress, he will manage to 
take something from the comfort of his own chil- 
dren in order to relieve the unfortunate. He is 
very rarely in the presence of death, except in his 
last hours. 

" So much for the life of an honest man in our 
society. Now let me show you a very different 
society. You take from our fields men who have not 
shared in our education, who have not been nourished 
upon all the grandeurs of history, who have not lived 
with the works and the memories of the Turennes, 
the Cond^s, the Vaubans, the Caesars, the Hanni- 
bals ; and to these men you say : ' You are not to 



2 1 8 Thiers. 

think of your personal welfare. While all around you 
is peace, it is the duty of society to keep up your 
strength by sufficient food, and not to expose you to 
needless dangers. But peace is to be merely an 
accident in your existence ; in case of need you are 
to endure frost and heat, to fling yourselves into the 
icy flood of the Beresina, and, when there remains 
scarcely a hope of saving the army, you shall still die 
to save it. You shall endure the burning heat of 
Africa, and your honor, your glory, shall be to die 
beneath the flag.' 

" Is this the ordinary life of the honest man? No, 
it is a life apart, this soldier's life to which our institu- 
tions compel certain men. This, gentlemen, is the 
school of the soldier. To learn to suffer, to bear in- 
tolerable hardships ; to have always before one's eyes 
the idea of death ; to be almost happy, when the 
moment of danger arrives, to march beside one's 
leaders under the flag ; and, when that flag is victori- 
ous, to triumph, to be glad, glad as with a personal 
happiness, — such is the soldier's life." 

In a message to the Assembly after the re- 
cess of 1872, Thiers made the most com- 
plete exposition of his policy. What he had 
scarcely ventured to hope for at Bordeaux 
had been realized. In less than two years he 
had dressed and healed the country's wounds, 
and he now presented to the Assembly a nation 
peaceful, prosperous, and free. All events and 
all elections had declared in favor of a Re- 



The Third Republic. 219 

public. In his turn Thiers now declared for 
it, without, however, proposing a Constitution. 
It was neither through want of logic nor 
through timidity and indecision that he re- 
frained from taking this step, but through a 
feeling which was appreciated by very few of 
his hearers. At that very moment he was 
negotiating with Germany for the anticipated 
deliverance of our territory, and he feared to 
embarrass the negotiations by the spectacle of 
a divided Assembly, incapable of founding a 
government, and too much inclined to over- 
throw him whose individual word was the sole 
guarantee in all dealings with foreign govern- 
ments. He therefore confined himself to sow- 
ing his ideas in the minds of men, hoping that 
the Assembly would see for itself that the 
time had at last come to emerge from this 
provisional regime, which was growing unen- 
durable. He got no thanks for his discretion. 
He was violently attacked, his adversaries be- 
ing as angry with him for showing that the 
Republic was the only government possible as 
if he had tried to impose that government by 
force. They invoked the famous Bordeaux 
Compact, which he had been precisely the one 
to respect ; for they really could not reproach 
him for having governed well, and it was only 
by misgovernment that he could have wronged 



2 20 Thiers. 

the Republic. This, indeed, was what dis- 
comfited them ; they would have been glad 
of an excuse for a savior of the country, 
and were vexed to find the country already 
saved by this eloquent and politic commoner, 
who, like the great majority of the French 
middle class, had been made a Republican by 
reflection. 

The Assembly resumed the discussion of 
fragments of constitutions, of ways and means 
of organizing, not the Republic, but " Republi- 
can government," according to the wire-drawn 
euphemism of the time. With these debates 
Thiers had little to do ; during the last months 
of his firm but precarious rule he seldom 
appeared in the Tribune. The negotiations 
with Germany took up all his time, and he 
hastened the liberation with as much eagerness 
as if the conclusion of the treaty was not to be 
the signal for a final, victorious attack upon 
him. 

Finally, on the 17th of March, 1873, M. de 
Remusat, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, 
read the Treaty, whereupon the Assembly ad- 
journed for a recess of two months. During 
this recess the situation was modified by two 
noteworthy occurrences : the election at Paris 
of M. Barodet against the Minister of Foreign 
Affairs, indicating a split in the Repubhcan 



The Third Republic. 221 

party; and the declaration by M. Jules Simon 
in a public speech, that Thiers had delivered 
the French territory. It is easy to understand 
what irritation such an assertion must have 
aroused in certain quarters of the Assembly; 
while the manifestation on the part of the 
Parisians, subject though they are to electoral 
caprices, showed that Thiers could not count 
upon the support of all shades of Republicans. 
This was an added reason why the Conserva- 
tives should have defended him. The Cham- 
ber thought differently, and the resignation of 
Jules Simon was not deemed a sufficient satis- 
faction to those who had been wounded by 
his words. An interpellation signed by three 
hundred and twenty deputies was made at the 
opening session, and the 23d of May was fixed 
upon for the discussion. 

The debate lasted for two days, and closed 
with one of Thiers' finest speeches. He was 
not eager to retain office, and seemed to think 
only of justifying his course and of retiring 
with honor. He made a proud and dignified 
sketch of his policy. The tone was not pro- 
voking, but the underlying ideas were not of a 
nature to soothe the rancorous and win over 
the wavering. It was a farewell discourse. To 
an interrupter he loftily replied : *■' No ! I do 
not fear for my memory, for I shall not be 



2 2 2 Thiers. 

tried before the tribunal of parties; before 
them I should be found wanting. But I shall 
not be condemned at the bar of history, and 
to that tribunal I appeal." 

By a majority of fourteen the Assembly 
voted an order of the day which Thiers did 
not approve. He might, however, have re- 
tained the Presidency, — for that same Assem- 
bly had passed a singular bill enacting that 
the Chamber and the President should have 
equal terms and should disappear together. 
But to what purpose? How could he direct a 
policy which he deemed bad and dangerous? 
Collisions would have become more and more 
frequent and disastrous. He therefore offered 
his resignation, which was immediately ac- 
cepted, and France ceased to be governed by 
the man who had ruled by the divine right of 
superior inteUigence, — a legitimacy as good 
as any. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

RETIREMENT AND DEATH. 

*" I TRIERS' personal friends, who were chiefly 
-^ concerned about his health and his good 
name, were in no wise depressed by the par- 
liamentary coup d'etat that deprived him of 
power. He gained more in the national re- 
spect than he lost in authority. He had great 
need of rest, and he could not have held 
out long under the double burden of his sev- 
enty-six years and of that overcharged life in 
which he spared himself neither by day nor 
by night. It was not, however, to the plea- 
sures of idleness that he gave himself up ; his 
new-found leisure was devoted to his " beloved 
studies." This expression has been so much 
abused in France as to have become a mere 
newspaper commonplace. But Thiers was 
not acquainted with commonplace: it was a 
thing that did not exist for him. What he 
said rendered his impression, his thought; and 
he employed the right word, careless of what 
others might associate with that word. He 



224 Thiers, 

was quite sincere in his delight at the thought 
of once more working for himself. He was 
not attached to power for power's sake, but 
for the sake of carrying out in action the con- 
ceptions of his mind. Those who thought 
otherwise never saw him on one of those days 
when he threw off the cares of State and per- 
mitted himself to indulge his artistic taste and 
his love of research. They knew nothing of 
his unaffected pleasure at finding himself once 
more surrounded by his books, his collections, 
his unfinished works, — that other life so 
foreign to the duties of the Head of a State 
where everything was to be done, to be un- 
done, or to be done over again. 

The first part of his retirement was spent in 
supervising the work upon the house where he 
intended to pass the remainder of his days. 
This house in St. George Place had been 
destroyed by the Commune, and the Assembly 
had ordered its reconstruction at the expense 
of the State. But the Assembly could not 
restore to him the works of art with which his 
house had been adorned. Before leaving Paris 
on the 1 2th of September, 1870, he had, in 
anticipation of the siege, secured a portion of 
the collections in the midst of which he had 
lived for so many years. All that he had been 
forced to leave was sent by the Communal 



Retirement and Death. 225 

Council to the furniture storehouse, and after- 
ward to the Tuileries. Thus the pictures and 
the marbles that had been the delight of his 
hours of leisure were consumed with the 
palace of the sovereigns whose adviser or 
antagonist he had been, and whose supreme 
power had fallen to him in the decline of life ! 
He caused the ashes of the palace, and the old 
curiosity shops, to be searched for the precious 
remains. All was not consumed ; the agents 
of the Commune had reserved some exquisite 
bits which were found and repurchased. Artists 
were employed to restore others ; and two 
years after the 24th of May (1873), Thiers 
found himself again in a house like the one he 
had lived in for forty years. Here he took up 
the thread of the old life, with its amusements 
and its labors. At five o'clock every morning 
he was at work in that very private cabinet, 
where he was surrounded by the beautiful in 
all its forms, from the celebrated Dancing 
Mime bought at the Denon sale and the Faun 
of Praxiteles, to those expressive heads of 
mules in bronze, which are said to have deco- 
rated the chair of the Caesars. There too 
were casts of the Farnese Hercules, of Col- 
leone's equestrian statue, of Rude's Mercury, 
of Cellini's Perseus, and of Michel Angelo's 
Day and Night, Evening and Morning. The 
IS 



226 Thiers. 

walls were adorned with copies in aquarelle of 
the most beautiful Italian paintings, and there 
were portfolios filled with those rolls of silk 
upon which Japanese painters illustrate the 
tales of their poets and the episodes of their 
romances. Less classic in art than in litera- 
ture, Thiers really preferred the art of Florence 
and of the Renaissance, but he had acquired a 
taste for these Japanese artists with their 
strange mixture of the real and the fantastic. 
All these marvels of taste have been described 
by M. Charles Blanc ; they can be viewed at 
the Louvre, Thiers having bequeathed to the 
State the fruits of his hours of relaxation, as 
well as those of his toil and his experience. 

As might have been foreseen, his retirement 
did not check the national movement, and 
the Republican tendency of the elections, 
for which he had been reproached, became 
more and more marked. The report of the 
alliance between the two branches of the 
House of Bourbon had aroused the public 
mind. The rural populations were not es- 
pecially attached to the Republic, but the 
word " Restoration " exasperated them. The 
secular hatred of the old serfs of the glebe for 
the domination of the privileged classes flamed 
up at the very mention of a dynasty of the Old 
Regime. The distinction that had hitherto 



Retirement and Death. 227 

obtained between the House of Orleans and 
the House of Bourbon now disappeared, and 
with it the last hope of the Monarchy. The 
National Assembly did not shut its eyes to 
the indications furnished by the elections. 
But it was more disturbed by an event which 
could have surprised no one who had followed 
the Count of Chambord through his career 
as an exiled pretender. Everything indicates 
that this respectable prince did not wish to 
reign, but merely to preserve intact his sup- 
posed rights, and to bring into subordination 
the family which, in his eyes, had usurped 
those rights. Scarcely had he gained this 
concession, when he wrote a letter the sub- 
stance of which was that he could not and 
would not govern the France of the nineteenth 
century. 

Marshal MacMahon, the Ministry, and the 
Assembly yielded to the inevitable. In poli- 
tics, he is the best man who first sees the ne- 
cessity of things, and who undertakes in the 
nick of time to banish difficulties and augment 
advantages. Herein lay one of the secrets of 
Thiers' superiority; his successors found them- 
selves compelled to establish a Republican 
.Constitution under less favorable conditions, 
inasmuch as they inspired less confidence, as 
they had embittered party strife, and had 



2 28 Thiers. 

furnished their enemies with new grievances 
and new weapons. This was the most defi- 
nite result of the 24th of May, 1873, and of 
the substitution of the Ministry of Messrs. de 
MacMahon, de BrogHe, de La Bouillerie, 
Tailhand, Depeyre, and Baragnon, for the 
Ministry of Messrs. Thiers, Jules Simon, de 
Remusat, Dufaure, Casimir Perier, and Leon 
Say. 

Thiers took no part in the debate. He 
contented himself with voting in ironical si- 
lence for an excellent Constitution, very simi- 
lar to the one which he had proposed two 
years before and which had been the occasion 
of his fall. He reappeared but once in the 
Tribune, merely to sustain against General 
du Barrail, the Minister of War, his opinion 
touching the construction of the new forts at 
Paris. This he did with feeling, moderation, 
and lucidity. It is not unlikely that could 
Thiers have chosen the occasion for his final 
speech, this would have been the one he 
would have preferred. In his last years he 
had chiefly at heart the things that pertain 
to the greatness of France in her foreign 
relations. 

After the Constitution had been established, 
the National Assembly gave way to the two 
Chambers. The senators were elected in Jan- 



Retirement and Death. 229 

uary, 1876, the deputies a little later. Thiers 
was elected to both Chambers; for, although 
he could not but prefer the second Chamber 
as being a better arena for political action, the 
people of Belfort had testified their touching 
gratitude by choosing him as their senator. 
The majority of the Chamber of Deputies 
took a decisive course. After a weak pre- 
tence of resistance, the President of the Re- 
pubHc was forced to accept as the President 
of his Council, whom? M. Jules Simon him- 
self, whose presence in the cabinet of Thiers 
had given such umbrage and had seemed to 
be one of the principal causes of the 24th of 
May. Never has the logic of facts been more 
clearly vindicated. It was also doubtless logi- 
cal that the reactionary coalition should make 
another of those efforts whose apparent result 
is to check the tide, and whose inevitable re- 
sult is to hasten it. It appears that, after 
some months of administration, M. Jules 
Simon involved the social order and reli- 
gion in new dangers. He was dismissed as 
summarily as the Sultan dismisses his Grand 
Vizier. After both theory and fact had 
shown that the Monarchy was impossible, a 
Ministry was formed from the Monarchical 
coalition to prorogue and then to dissolve the 
Chamber. This is what is known as the cotip 



2 30 Thiers. 

d'etat of the i6th of May, 1877. In sooth, this 
month of May brings forth strange flowers. 

On the day of the dissolution, the Chamber 
gave Thiers a touching ovation. The Minister 
of the Interior having been imprudent enough 
to claim for the Government the honor of de- 
livering the territory, an immense majority of 
the deputies rose to their feet, stretched out 
their hands toward Thiers, and an almost unani- 
mous shout proclaimed his right to the name 
of Liberator. This was the last time that he 
appeared in public. He was not sick; he bore 
lightly the weight of his eighty years ; but he 
was enfeebled. The emotion which his physi- 
cal weakness made him unable to conceal, the 
tears he shed at hearing himself solemnly hailed 
by the representatives of the nation as the im- 
personation of patriotism and of law, enhanced 
the pathos of the memorable scene. 

The dissolution was followed by a period 
of severe administrative repression designed 
to influence the elections. Thiers retired to St. 
Germain, where he was the object of the tender 
attentions of his wife and of her sister, Made- 
moiselle Dosne, who made his life easy and 
happy. There he completed his book of sci- 
entific philosophy. Then he turned again to 
politics, and wrote, for the last time, a sum- 
mary of the principles which had guided his 



Retirement and Death. 231 

life, and which had once more been brought 
into reproach. The pubhcation of this bro- 
chure, which every one read, assured victory 
to the Liberals. But he did not Hve to see it; 
he was still holding the pen, when he suddenly 
and quietly passed away on the 3d of Septem- 
ber, 1877. A few days later, the manifesto was 
published under the editorship of M. Mignet, — 
a worthy witness of his friend's constancy in 
opinion and in affection. 

All Paris took part in the funeral of the 
First President of the Republic. During his 
life the Parisians had cherished a variety of 
feelings toward him, as was natural in the 
case of a nervous, changeable people toward a 
man who changed so little. But as his coffin 
passed, there was but one sentiment for the 
dead. Madame Thiers and her friends had de- 
clined the public funeral offered by the some- 
what embarrassed Ministry. They preferred 
to trust to that touching and delicate respect 
for the dead which is a peculiar virtue of the 
Parisians, to those memories which made this 
" little bourgeois," as the people called him, 
the representative of the whole middle class. 
Not his least claim to our admiration is the 
fact that this ardent publicist, this impassioned 
historian, this intelligent orator, invariably up- 
held those ideas of wise and liberal good sense 



232 Thiers. 

which, after all, constitute the distinctive mark 
of the French middle class. 

Measure, sobriety, taste pointed with wit, — 
these are indeed the qualities that the French 
name represents throughout the civilized world. 
They are our pride and our glory; to justify 
our claim to them it is enough that men like 
Thiers should have borne the name of French- 
man. Our history is too often characterized by 
excess and violence. Are we not the nation of 
the Jacquerie and of the Dragonnades ? Did 
we not push religious rancor to the massacre of 
St. Bartholomew, flattery of monarchs to idol- 
atry under Louis XIV., political fury to the 
Reign of Terror, love of glory to the Retreat 
from Moscow, socialist theories to the Insur- 
rection of June, 1848, the spirit of reaction to 
the selfishness of the Second Empire, anarchy 
to the Commune ? And that respectable Na- 
tional Assembly, — straining toward the goal 
of Monarchical restoration, unmindful of the 
past, bhnd to the present, and careless of what 
might be the purposes of those whom it would 
have conducted to the throne, — was its forget- 
fulness on the 24th of May, of so many services 
and good counsels, an evidence of sobriety and 
moderation ? Surely Shakspeare were better 
fitted than any of our classical poets to cele- 
brate such events ! Nevertheless, it is by these 



Retirement and Death. 233 

poets, and by such of our historians and states- 
men as resemble them, that we are best rep- 
resented in the Congress of Nations. Some 
great men, scattered here and there through the 
centuries, have saved our honor. Montaigne, 
Sully, Henry IV., Moliere, Colbert, Vauban, 
Montesquieu, Voltaire, Turgot, — these are the 
representatives of the French mind and of the 
French language. In this select company pos- 
terity will assign a place, and a lofty one, to 
Louis Adolphe Thiers. 



INDEX/ 



Aix, Academy of, unwilling to award 
its prize to Thiers, i6. 

Alexander II., Tsar, Thiers' mission 
to, i8i, 184-187. 

Algeria, a school of war for the 
French, 68-70. 

Ambition, Thiers' relative freedom 
from, 82, 83. 

America, North and South, France 
must choose between, 107. 

Andrieux, Frangois, Thiers' Academic 
address upon, 73. 

Angouleme, Duke of, commands 
French army of intervention in 
Spain in 1823, 13. 

Armistice (the) between France and 
Germany, proposed by the Tsar, 
186; by other powers, 187; Gam- 
betta and the Delegation consent 
to, 1S8, 189 ; the Paris government 
consents to, 191, 192 ; the people of 
Paris object to, 192, 193 ; Thiers' 
negotiations with Bismarck con- 
cerning, 193-197. 

Arts, fine, Thiers writes upon, 23; 
his taste for, 224-226. 

Augustus, the Emperor, his usurpa- 
tion like that of Napoleon III., 125. 
126 ; Tacitus' remark applicable to 
the two Napoleons, 135. 

ALUTiale, Duke of, his service to the 
Republic, 205. 

Austria, mistake of the Empire touch- 
i"g> 157 ) Thiers' mission to, 1S3, 



Banquets, campaign of, 95-97. 

Barante, Baron, quoted, 94. 

Barrot, Odilon, radical leader, 82 ; 
Guizot's epigram upon, 84 ; moder- 
ate opposition to Guizot ministry, 
89; repugnance to the campaign of 
banquets, 96. 

Bazaine, Marshal, unfortunate results 
of his surrender, i8g. 

Belfort, city of, Thiers rescues it from 
Germany, 201 ; its gratitude, 229. 

Bellamy, Miss, biography by Thiers, 
36. 

Benedetti, Count Vincent, 165, 166. 

Berard, M., on the force of " fixed 
situation," 103. 

Berger, M., Thiers' faithful shepherd, 
19. 

Berryer, P. A., a natural declaimer, 
60; attitude toward the July Gov- 
ernment, 76, 77 ; description of his 
oratory, 78 ; joins the coalition 
against Minister Mol^, 80-82 ; in 
the Left with Thiers, 151. 

Beust, Count, Thiers' first interview 
with, 183, 184; second interview, 
1S7. 

Bibliography of the writings of Thiers 
mentioned in this book. See Works. 

Bismarck, Chancellor of the North 
German Confederation, excluded by 
the Ollivier ministry from the Ho- 
henzoUern negotiations, 164-166; 
first interview with Thiers at Ver- 
sailles, 188-190; consents to nego- 
tiate with Thiers concerning the 
armistice, 193, 194; but wishes to 
treat for peace, 194, 195 ; his severe 
conditions, 196; "a barbarian of 
genius," 200. 

Blanc, Charles, his description of 
Thiers' art collection, 226. 

^ A complete list of Thiers' writings, so far as they are mentioned or cited 
in this book, is given under the title " Works." All extended quotations are 
indexed under the headings " Thiers," " Works," and " Quotations." — Tr. 



Balzac, Honor^ de, unfortunate in- 
fluence of his novels upon social 
and political ideals, 91-93 ; simi- 
larity of his heroes to the masters 
of France after the coup d'etat, 
126. 



236 



Index. 



Bodin, M., at first associated with 
Thiers in the History of the French 
Revolution, 39. 

Boisseree, Sulpiz, article by Thiers 
on, 36. 

Bonaparte. See Napoleon. 

Bonaparte, Prince Louis, plays the 
part of a pretender in 1848, no, 
in; Thiers breaks with his own 
party in order to favor the candi- 
dacy of, 111-114; elected President 
of the French Republic, 114 ; policy, 
119 ; dismisses General Changarnier, 
120; Thiers goes into opposition, 
120-122 ; ccrnp d'itat, 123-126. (See 
Napoleon III.) 

Bordeaux Compact, 210, 219. 

Bourbon, House of, opposition to 
constitutional freedom, 14 ; its claim 
of legitimacy the great obstacle to 
freedom, 33 ; revolutionary charac- 
ter of their procedure, 56 ; Thiers 
upon their boasted legitimacy (quo- 
tation), 77, 78; their attitude in 
1848 as represented by Falloux, 113, 
114 ; their attitude under the Third 
Republic, 213 ; why they sacrificed 
Martignac and OUivier, 213, 214; 
alliance with the House of Orleans, 
227. 

Broglie, Duke Victor de, opposition 
to the Bourbon monarchy, 30 ; 
characterization of the Doctrmaires, 
30, 31; opmion of contemporary 
literature, 53 ; famous words about 
the July Revolution, 53 ; remark to 
a signer of Thiers' manifesto, 55 ; 
with Thiers in the Soult ministry, 
64 ; republicanism, 100 ; his part in 
the Liberal Conference of 1863, 144- 
146 ; quoted, 160. 

Brnnnow, M. de, Russian Ambassa- 
dor at London, iSi. 

Buffet, L. J., Finance Minister under 
Ollivier, 160 ; the first to resign, 161. 

Calmon, M., his edition of Thiers' 
speeches, 11 ; his prefaces to these 
speeches, 64, 153. 

Campaign of banquets, Thiers' oppo- 
sition to, 95-97. 

Canouville, M. de, compares Thiers 
with Napoleon, 6g, 70. 

Carnot, L. H., attitude toward the 
Empire, 145. 

Carrel, Armand, gets credit for a 
notable passage by Thiers, 36. 

Catholic party. See Clergy. 

Cavaignac, General, victory over the 
insurrection of June, 1848, no; can- 



didate for the presidency of the 
Republic, in; attitude toward the 
Empire, 145. 

Cayla, Madame de, reputed mistress 
of Louis XVIII., 22. 

Chambord, Count of, renounces the 
hope of the crown, 227. 

Changarnier, General, dismissed by 
President Bonaparte, 120. 

Charles X., King of France, charac- 
terized, 35 ; what he did for Thiers, 
45- 

Charles XI L of Sweden, Voltaire's 
History of, 45. 

Charter, constitutional, of June, 1814, 
attitude of the Restoration, mon- 
archy toward, 27-29, 

Chenier, Andrd, Thiers distantly re- 
lated to, 16. 

Church, Roman Catholic. See Clergy. 

Clergy, the Roman Catholic, their 
hostility to freedom under the Res- 
toration, 27 ; victory in the contest 
with the University concerning sec- 
ondary instruction, go, 91 ; Thiers' 
concessions to them in 1849 and 

1850, 115-119. 

Coalition of Guizot, Thiers, Berryer, 
and Barrot against Minister Mol£, 
80-82. 

Colbert, a representative French- 
man, 233. 

Cologne Cathedral, article by Thiers 
on, 36. 

Common-sense, Thiers on, 109. 

Commune (the), how Thiers met it, 
206, 210 ; destruction of his house 
and collections by, 224, 225. 

Compact of Bordeaux, 210, 219. 

Conservatives, French Tories, Guizot 
their leader, 83 ; far less disposed 
than he to concede reforms, 89-91 ; 
forlorn hope of this party, 92, 93 ; 
exclusiveness and intolerance of, 
213,214. 

Constitution, proposed revision in 

1851, 122 ; the Emperor's modifica- 
tion of that of 1852, 142-144 ; that of 
1869 voted by plebiscite, 161 ; Thiers' 
postponement of the discussion of 
that of the Third Republic, 202, 
204, 205, 219; its first article, 216. 

" Constitutionnel," the, contains an 
extract from Thiers' prize essay, 17 ; 
first journal for which Thiers wrote, 
21 ; character of his articles, 22, 23 ; 
the organ of Thiers' political ideas, 

32- 

Consulate and Empire, History of. 
See History. 



Index. 



237 



Conversation, brilliancy of Thiers', 
67-69 ; in the time of the Third 
Empire, 129-131 ; Thiers' use of 
in preparing his speeches, 153. 

" Corinne," Madame de Stael's ro- 
mance, Thiers' criticism of, 23-25. 

Coup d^ Etat (oi "Dec. 1851), 123-126; 
its influence on Thiers' judgment of 
the I'^th Brumaire, 135. 

ConJ) d'Etat(ol May, 1877), 229, 230. 

Cousin, Victor, taunts Thiers with 
ignorance of Greek, n8. 

Crimean War (the), Thiers' attitude 
concerning, 132. 

" Defence of Property," book by 

Thiers, loS. 
Delacroix, his genius divined by 

Thiers, 23. 
Delegation of Tours, 187, 188, 189, 

19°- 
Disraeli, Benjamin, plagiarism from 

Thiers, 36. 
Doctrinaires, their attitude toward the 

Bourbon monarchy, 30, 31 ; Thiers' 

divergence from them, 31-33. 
Dosne, Mile., Thiers' sister-in-law, 

230- 

Doudan, X., description of Thiers' 
conversation quoted and criticised, 
6S-71 ; phrase quoted, 164. _ 

Duchies, question of the, Thiers' ad- 
vice concerning, 157. 

Dufaure, Jules, political principles, 
102 ; refuses to follow Thiers' 
leadership in 1848, in ; accepts a 
portfolio under Thiers, 201. 

Dupin (the Elder), on the confiscation 
of the Orleans estates, 125. 

Duval, Jules, editor " Journal des 
Debats," 182. 

Duvergier de Hauranne, Prosper, 
discusses Algiers with Thiers, 69 ; 
republicanism, 100 ; exiled with 
Thiers in December, 1851, 124. 

Education Bill of 1850, alliance of 

Thiers and Falloux in favor of, 

1 1 7-1 19. 
Empire, Consulate and. History of. 

See History. 
Empire, the Second(i85i-i87o). See 

Napoleon III. 
Empress (the). 6'^s Eugenie. 
England, her constitution regarded by 

Thiers as a model for France, 32, 

34; Thiers' mission to, 180, 181. 
Eugenie, Empress of France, her 

marriage, 127; seeks the aid of 

Thiers, 173-175. 



Falloux, Alfred de, blame of Thiers 
in his memoirs, 1 13 ; alliance with 
Thiers against the University, 117- 
119. 

Favre, Jules, 76 (foot-note); one of 
the Five, 144; his speaking charac- 
terized, 151 ; proposes to Thiers the 
mission to the neutral powers, 179 ; 
rendezvous with Thiers, 196. 

February Revolution (year 1848), lack 
of moral justification, 99; endan- 
gered civilization, 103. 

Female sex. See Women. 

Ferdinand VII., King of Spain, re- 
instated by France in 1823, 14. 

Ferry, Jules, deputy in 1869, 160 ; 
with Picard rescues the Trochu 
ministry, 195. 

Finance, Thiers' papers and speeches 
on, 58, 59. 

Florence and Venice contrasted by 
Thiers, 158, 159. 

Fourrichon, Admiral, Minister of 
War after the 4th of September, 
182. 

Freedom, political, relation to moral 
freedom, 58 ; Thiers' definition of, 
154- 

French Academy, Thiers' reception 
into, 73-75. 

French representative men, 233. 

French traits, 232. 



Gambetta, L^on, elected deputy in 
i86q, 160; head of the war party 
at Tours, 188 ; his improvised ar- 
mies, 197 ; sacrificed the interests 
of the Republic, 19S. 

Gautier, Th^ophile, his love of art 
for art's sake, 52. 

Gerard, the painter, Thiers comments 
upon his picture of Corinne in- 
spired, 23. 

Gladstone, W. E., unwillingness to 
make promises to Thiers, 181. 

" Globe,'' the, Thiers does the art 
criticism for, 23 ; organ of the Doc- 
trinaire opposition to the Bourbon 
monarchy, 30, 31. 

Gortschakoff, Prince, Thiers' inter- 
views with, 185, 186. 

Government of Louis Philippe. See 
July Government. 

Giamont, Duke of. Foreign Minister 
under OUivier, 163 ; his " hussar- 
diplomacy," 164-167; his mistake 
about Austria, 184. 

Granville, Lord, reception of Thiers, 



238 



Index. 



Greek, study of, Thiers complains of 
the time given to, ii8. 

Guicciardini, cited by Thiers, 155. 

Guizot, F. P. G., his oratory, 60; his 
oratory compared with that of 
Thiers, 63 ; elected to the Acad- 
emy the year after Thiers, 75 ; 
leader of the coalition against the 
Mole ministry, 8t, 82 ; becomes 
leader of the timid conservatives, 
83, 84; ambassador to England 
under Thiers, 85 ; succeeds Thiers 
as prime minister, 86 ; resists elec- 
toral reform, 87 ; remark concern- 
ing Thiers, 88 ; more liberal than 
his party, 89 ; quoted, go ; note to 
Metternich (quoted), 94, 95 ; quoted, 
116; attacks the Education Bill of 
1850, 119 ; his party spirit, 213. 

Haubersart, M. de, discusses Al- 
giers with Thiers, 69. 

Hauranne. See Duvergier. 

Henry IV., Thiers' policy identical 
with that of, 212; a representative 
Frenchman, 233. 

" History of the Consulate and the 
Empire," the most splendid monu- 
ment of contemporary literature, 
10 ; account and criticism of, 135- 
140; Metternich's estimate, 141. 

" History of the French Revolution," 
account and criticism of, 38-45. 

HohenzoUern, Leopold, Prince of, 
crown of Spain offered to, 164. 

House in the Place St. George, 
Thiers' art collection in, 224-226. 

Hugo, Victor, his tardy justice to 
Louis Philippe, 50 ; quoted, 194, 
195. 

Instruction, secondary, 90. (See 
Education Bill.) 

Italy, Thiers' attitude toward, 157 ; 
graceful remarks concerning, 
(quoted), 158, 159 ; eventful day 
on which he first set foot on her 
soil, 183 ; his interview with her 
king, 187. 

Japanese art, Thiers' fancy for, 226. 

" Jerome Paturot " (novel by Rey- 
baud), description of Thiers' ora- 
tory quoted from, 71, 72. 

July Government, its ill-fortune, _ 47- 
49 ; attitude of imaginative writers 
toward, 49-53 ; Thiers' brochure on, 
55-58 ; golden era of, 78, 79; hos- 
tility of the clerical party to, 91 ; 
injury inflicted by Balzac's novels 



upon, 92-94 ; overthrown, 98 ; a 
habitable republic, 99 ; regretted 
by Thiers, 102 ; hostility of the 
Catholic clergy to, 116, 117 ; Thiers' 
later feeling toward, 149 ; why sac- 
rificed by the conservatives, 213. 
July Revolution (year 1830), why ac- 
ceptable to the people, 34 ; occasion 
and nature, 46 ; a noble spectacle, 
S3 ; share of Thiers iti, 54-57. 



Lafayette, his policy of conspiracy 
against the Bourbon monarchy, 28, 

^'^■ 

Laffitte, Jacques, his use of Thiers' 
financial papers, 58. 

Lagarde, Denis, the Emperor's ironi- 
cal remark concerning, 143. 

Lamartine, Alphonse de, his History 
of the Girondins,, 40, 42 ; his ora- 
tory, 60; opposed'"^© war in 1848, 
104. 

Law, John, study of by Thiers, 36. 

Lecomte, General, the Commune be- 
gins with his murder, 206. 

Left Centre. See Liberal party. 

Legitimate monarchy and legitimacy. 
See Bourbon. 

Lemoinne, John, his anecdote of 
Thiers, 53. 

Leopold, Prince of Hohenzollem, 
crown of Spain offered to, 164. 

Liberal party, how it suffered by the 
French Revolution, 41, 42 ; be- 
comes a Whig party with Thiers as 
leader, 83; moderation of the liberal 
opposition to the Guizot ministrj', 
86-S9; the caucus of 1863, 144-146 : 
Thiers states its mission under the 
Empire, 149 ; Jules Simon describes 
its attitude under the Third Repub- 
lic, 202-204 ; Thiers reconciles it to 
the Republic, 204-206. 

Liberal Union (the), 130, 131, 204. 

Liberty. See Freedom. 

Literature, imaginative, hostile to the 
July Government, 49-53 ; social 
influence exemplified in the case of 
Balzac, 91-93. 

Littr^, E., credits a notable passage by 
Thiers to Armand Carrel, 36. 

Louis XVIII., Thiers offends the ht- 
erary vanity of, 21. 

Louis Philippe (at first the Duke of 
Orleans), his qualification for the 
throne, 33, 34; happily named, 46; 
anecdote of, 47, 48 ; Victor Hugo's 
tardy justice to, 50 ; brought back 
to Paris by Thiers, 54 ; summons 



Index. 



239 



Thiers and takes flight, 98 ; re- 
garded as a persecutor of the clergy, 
116. 

Machiavelli, cited by Thiers, 154. 

MacMahon, Marshal, Thiers opposes 
his movement that ended in Sedan, 
175 ; should have fallen back upon 
Paris, 191 ; hisministry after Thiers' 
resignation, 228 ; his coup d'etat., 
22g, 230. 

Minimise, Prosper, his relation to 
Napoleon III., 51 ; attempts to 
mediate between the Emperor and 
Thiers, 132, 133; negotiates with 
Thiers on behalf of the Empress, 
173, 174- 

Metternich, Prince of, obliged to flee in 
184S, 104 ; irritation with the Pope 
in 1849, ^'S t estimate of Thiers' 
Consulate and Empire (quoted), 

Mexican expedition (the), 155, 156. 

Mignet, Frangois, Thiers' lifelong in- 
timacy with, 18-20; prosecuted for 
freedom of speech, 35; a partisan 
of the Revolution, 43 ; editor of 
Thiers' last political work, 231. 

Milo of Crotona, how he pressed the 
pomegranate, 103. 

Mirabeau, Marquis, Thiers' alleged 
imitation of, 59, 60. 

Mole, M., the coalition of party chiefs 
against his ministry, 79-82. 

Moliere, J. B. P., quoted to describe 
Thiers, 66, 67 ; quoted, 201 ; a rep- 
resentative Frenchman, 233. 

" Monarchy of 1830, The," brochure 
by Thiers, 55-58. 

Monarchy of July, or of Louis Phi- 
lippe. ^^^ July Government. 

Montaigne, a representative French- 
man, 233. 

Montalembert, Count of, failure of 
Guizot to conciliate him, gr. 

Montesquieu, on usurpation in a free 
state, 125, 126 ; a representative 
Frenchman, 233. 

MoraKty, relation to politics, 57, 58. 

Musset, Alfred de, quoted, 138. 

Napoleon Bonaparte, compared 
and contrasted with Thiers, 70, 71 ; 
Thiers' eulogy of (quotation), 74, 
75 ; Thiers' consistent judgment of 
his character, 135, 136; Thiers' ex- 
cessive admiration for, 136-138 ; not 
open to suggestions, 215. 

Napoleon III., the cotip tTHat, 123- 
126 ; his reign a series of surprises, 



126, 127 ; and of novel proposals, 
128 ; mistook day-dreaming for med- 
itation, 128, 129 t good society has 
no need of a savior, 129-13 1; his 
way of receiving Thiers' sugges- 
tions, 132, 133 ; did he cause Thiers 
to think worse of his uncle? 135, 
136 ; his modifications in the Con- 
stitution of 1S52, 142-144 ; his " un- 
recognized incapacity," 156 ; his 
foreign policy, 156-158 ; deceives 
himself by universal suffrage, 159 ; 
his reform ministry, 160-163 t picks 
a quarrel with Germany, 163-166 ; 
fears Thiers was nght, 173 ; the 
Empress invokes the aid of Thiers, 
i73~i7S i "vacancy of the throne," 
175 ; hostility of the Austrians to, 
1 84. {See Bonaparte, Prince Louis.) 
Nodier, Cliarles, competitor with 
Thiers for election to the Academy, 
73- 

Ollivier, ^Emile, one of the Five, 144 ; 
his eloquence characterized, 151 ; 
head of the reform ministry, 160 ; 
his blindness, i6r, 162 ; joins the 
Bonapartists, 166 ; his weakness 
described by Thiers, 171. 

Orleans, Duke of. See Louis Phi- 
lippe. 

Orleans, House of. See Louis Phi- 
lippe ; July Government. 

Orleans Monarchy. See July Gov- 
ernment. 

Orleans, Princes of, their services in 
organizing the French army, 86; 
their estates confiscated by Napo- 
leon III., 125 ; Thiers' reference 
to the fact, 149 ; their behavior 
under the Third Republic, 205, 
206 ; their concession to the Count 
of Chambord, 227. 

Palmerston, Lord, on the Schles- 
wig-Holstein question, 157. 

Paris, condition of after the fall of 
Metz, igi ; people of, oppose the 
armistice, 192, 193; day of the 31st 
October at, 195 ; surrender of, 197, 
198; its feeling for Thiers, 231. 

Parliamentary reform, demanded by 
Thiers and refused by Guizot, 88, 
89. 

Pasteur, Louis, Thiers follows his 
researches, 133. 

" Paturot, Jerome " (novel by Rey- 
baud). Description of Thiers' ora- 
tory, 71, 72. 



240 



Index. 



Pericles, Thucydides' words concern- 
ing (quoted), 200. 

P^rier, Casimir, his ministry, 61 ; 
Thiers decides to support him, 62- 

Pessard, Hector, description of Thiers 
as president, 211. 

Picard, Ernest, one of the Five, 144 ; 
characterized, 151; quoted, 159; 
with Ferry rescues the Trochu 
ministry, 195. 

PJateau, M., Thiers repeats his fine 
experiment, 133. 

Politics, related to morality, 57, 58. 

Polybius, cited by Thiers, 155. 

Prevost-Paradol, Minister to the 
United States, 160. 

" Property, Defence of," book by 
Thiers, 108. 

Proudhon, Pierre Joseph, Thiers' 
report and speeches on his proposi- 
tions and theories, 109, no. 

Prussia, Thiers points out her sudden 
accession of strength (quotation), 
163 ; her self-respect wounded by 
the Ollivier ministry, 164, 165 ; dec- 
laration of war with, 166 ; Thiers' 
opinion as to the true course of the 
ministry toward (quoted), 170. 

Pyat, F^lix, tries to overthrow the 
Government of Defence, 195. 

" Pyrenees (the) and the South of 
France during the Months of No- 
vember and December, 1822," 
Thiers' first book, 13-16, 21. 

QuESTORS, proposition of in 1851, 122, 
123. 

Quotations from Thiers writings, 23, 
361 37j 73t 77> '°ii i°5' ^°9) 121, 
148, 154, iss, 158, 163, 168, 170, 
176, 208, 217. {See Works.) 

Radicalism, Thiers' hostility to (quo- 
tation), lOI. 

R^musat, Count of (father of the 
author), Thiers' intimacy with, 97 ; 
refuses to follow Thiers' leadership 
in 1848, iii; exiled with Thiers in 
December, 1851, 124; Minister of 
Foreign Affairs under Thiers. 220. 

Republic of 1848, people poorly pre- 
pared for, 99 ; attitude of Thiers 
toward, 100-103 > how it escaped 
the dangers of war, 104, 105. 

Republic, the Third, proclaimed by 
the masses, 177, 178; Thiers at its 
head, 198; in its name he recon- 
structs the government and nego- 
tiates peace, 201-210; difference 



between the Republic and Republi- 
can government, 220. 

Republican party, reconciled by 
Thiers to the old Liberal party, 
204, 205 ; why he would not cut off 
its tail, 214. 

Restoration of the House of Bourbon 
in France, 14 ; hostility to the 
principles of the Revolution, 26-29 ; 
why Martignac was abandoned un- 
der, 213 ; the fear of it under the 
Third Republic, 226, 227. 

Revolution, the French, its useful 
results, 26, 37, 38 (quotation) ; 
Thiers' History of, 38-45 ; reason 
for its failure, 57 ; Thiers an adher- 
ent of (quotation), loi. 

Revolution of February, 1848. See 
February Revolution. 

Revolution of July, 1830. See July 
Revolution. 

Reybaud, Louis, quotation from his 
novel of " Jerome Paturot," 71, 72. 

Rhetoric, ineificacy of its precepts, 9, 
152; Thiers' contribution to, 152, 
153. 

" Rolla," by Alfred de Musset, 
quoted, 138. 

Roman Catholic party. See Clergy. 

Roman expedition, Thiers defends 
the credits for, 115. 

Romanticism, Thiers' opinion of, 53. 

Rouher, Eugfene, on the Mexican ex- 
pedition, 156; expounds the foreign 
policy of the Empire, 156. 

Russia, Thiers' mission to, 181, 184- 



Sacv, S. U. S. de, his classical tastes 
commended by Thiers, 53. 

Saint-Cyr, Marshal Gouvion, article 
by Thiers on, 36. 

Sainte-Beuve, debt of modern criti- 
cism to, 37 ; on Thiers' description 
of the Mountain, 42 ; quoted, 79 ; 
estimate of Thiers' Consulate and 
Empire, 135. 

Saint-Hilaire, Barthdlemy, opposes 
the Education _ Bill of 1850, 119; 
elected deputy in i86g, 160. 

Sardou, Victorien, his fiero the En- 
gineer, 50. 

Say, L^on, on Thiers as a financier, 
211. 

Schleswig- Holstein, Thiers' advice 
concerning, 157. 

Scientific studies, Thiers blames the 
prominence allowed them by the 
University, 118 ; his later interest in, 
133, 134. 



Index. 



241 



Secondarj; instruction, bill of 1844 
concerning, go. {See Education 
Bill.) 

Sense, common, Thiers on, log. 

Sex, the. See Women. 

Shakspeare, his fitness to celebrate 
French violence, 23?. 

Simiane, Madame de, her comparison 
between the royalists and the party 
of Lafayette, 29. 

Simon, Jules, opposes the Education 
Bill of 1850, iig; his oratory de- 
scribed, 151 ; his description of the 
party of Thiers, 203, 204; obnoxious 
declaration about Thiers, 221 ; prime 
minister in 1876, 229; dismissal by 
MacMahon, 229, 230. 

Socialism, Thiers' refutation of Proud- 
hon's, 109. 

Soldier (the), Thiers' estimate of the 
ability required for the profession 
of (quotation), 36, 37 ; his opinion 
of Algiers as a school for, 6S-70 ; 
the life of (quotation), 217, 21S. 

Soult, Marshal, Thiers in his ministry, 
64- . , 

Spain, Invasion of by France in 1823, 

Speeches of Thiers, Calmon s edition, 

II, 64, 153; method of preparation, 

I52ji53- (.J^^ Quotations; Works.) 
Stael, Madame de, Thiers' criticism 

of, 23-25. 
Style, characteristics of Thiers', 9-1 1, 

139, 140. 
Suffrage, its extension demanded by 

Thiers and refused by Guizot, 87 ; 

rise of universal, 98. 
Sully, a representative Frenchman, 

233- 



"Tablbttes Universellbs," week- 
ly review to which Thiers contribu- 
ted, 21 ; bought up by the Bourbon 
ministry, 22, 

Tacitus, Guizot's unfortunate quota- 
tion from, 82 ; ciuoted, 135. 

Talleyrand, befriends Thiers, 21 ; on 
the salojis of the Revolution, 129. 

Terror, Reign of, influence in French 
politics, 41, 42. 

Thiers, Louis Adolphe (1797-1877), 
place in French literature, g-12 ; 
book on the Pyrenees and the south 
of France, 13 ; birth and education, 
16; early friendship with Mignet, 
18-20; writes for the " Constitu- 
tionnel," 21-23; estimate of Ma- 
dame de Stael (quoted), 23-25 ; 



political principles and practice 
under the Restoration Monarchy, 
31-34 ; success of his policy, 35 ; 
on the art of war (quoted), 36, 37 ; 
on the French Revolution (quoted), 
37, 38 ;_ "History of the French 
Revolution," 38-45 ; share in the 
Revolution of July, 1S30, 54-57; 
deputy and Under-Secretary of 
State, 58; unpromising debtct in 
the Chamber, 59 ; first success as 
a speaker, 61-64 ; Minister of the 
Interior under Marshal Soult, 64; 
merits and defects of his speeches, 
64, 65 ; boldness in action, 6i ; 
brilliancy in conversation, 67-69 ; 
simple and conversational style of 
his oratory, 71-73 ; installation 
speech at the French Academy 
(quoted), 73-75 ; on the legitimate 
monarchy (quoted), 77 ; joins the 
coalition against the Mole minis- 
try, 81; ambition, 82, 83; opposi- 
tion to Guizot, 83-91 ; blindness to 
the signs of the times in 1S47, 
93~95 i inaction at the crisis of 
February, 1848, 96-g8 ; attitude to- 
ward the Republic, 100; quoted, 
loi ; loyalty_ to the fallen Monarchy, 
102, 103 ; discouragement shown by 
letter to a friend, 105, 106 ; again 
a deputy, 106 ; on the Finance 
Committee, 107 ; " Defence of 
Property," io8 ; on common-sense 
(quoted), 109 ; refutes Proudhon's 
socialism, log ; favors the candi- 
dacy of Bonaparte, 112; defends 
the Roman expedition, 115; alli- 
ance with the clergy against the 
University, 1 16-1 19; resumes the 
leadership of the Liberal party, 
120; quotation from his speech, 

121 ; supports the Republic against 
the encroachments of Bonaparte, 

122 ; exile, 124-126; attitude toward 
the Empire, 129-13 1 ; social life, 
131; patriotism, 132; scientific 
studies, 133, rj4; "History of the 
Consulate and the Empire," 135 ; 
estimate of Napoleon, 135-138; 
defects and excellencies of his 
historical method, 138-14 1 ; enters 
the Corps Legislatif in 1863, 144 ; 
first great speech, 147 ; the same 
analyzed and quoted, 148-150 ; 
prudent and moderate opposition 
to the Empire, 150-152 ; method 
of preparing a speech, 152, 153 ; 
definition of a free country (quoted), 
154; vigilance the price of national 



16 



242 



Index. 



safety (quoted), 155; sharp oppo- 
sition to imperial foreign polic}', 
155-158; graceful passage on Italy 
(quoted), 15S, 159 ; supports the 
reform ministry of Ollivier, 160 ; 
demands that the army be strength- 
ened, 162 ; points out the strength 
of Prussia (quotation), 163 ; firmly 
• opposes the declaration of war, 
166-168 ; speech of July 15, 1870 
(quoted), 168, 169 ; letter to a 
friend describing the scene in the 
Chamber, 170-172 ; overtures of 
the Empress, 173, 174 ; member 
of the Council of Defence, 174 ; 
Sedan, 175 ; describes the over- 
throw of the Empire by the Cham- 
ber (quotation), 176 ; Embassy to 
all the great powers, 179; at Lon- 
don, 180, 181 ; at Vienna, 183, 184 ; 
at St. Petersburg, 184-186; at 
Florence, 187 ; returns to Tours, 
187, 18S ; negotiations with Bis- 
marck looking to an armistice, 
18S-197; head of the French Re- 
public, 19S ; first citizen, 200 ; 
moderate liberal attitude during 
the critical and formative period of 
the Republic, 202-206 ; transfers 
the seat of government to Ver- 
sailles, 206, 207 ; promises not to 
destroy the Republic (quotation), 
208 ; pledges himself to the Re- 
public, 209 ; great achievements, 
210; greatness as an administrator, 
211, 212; management of the As- 
sembly, 212-216; description of 
his appearance in the Chamber, 

216, 217; quotation on the soldier's 
life from a speech on recruitment, 

217, 218; completes the liberation 
of French soil, 218-220; resigna- 
tion, 221, 222; in retirement, 223; 
works of art adorning his house, 
224-236 ; receives an ovation from 
the Chamber, 230 ; final literary 
work, 230, 231 ; death and funeral, 
231 ; one of the first representatives 
of the French mind, 232,233. {See 
Quotations; Works.) 

Thiers, IVIadame, 230, 231. 

Thomas, General Clement, his mur- 
der, 206. 

Thucydides, words about Pericles 
applied to Thiers, 200. 

Thureau-Dangin, M., history of the 
July Government by, 49. 

Tocqueville, Alexis de, political 
principles, 102 ; defection from 
Thiers, iii. 



Tours, Delegation of. See Delega- 
tion. 

Turgot, a representative Frenchman, 
233- 

Ultramontane party. SeeQ,\s.x%y. 

Union, the Liberal, 130, 131. 

Universal suffrage. See Suffrage. 

University of France (the), the Guizot 
ministry sacrifice it to the clergy, 
90, 91 ; alliance of Thiers and Fal- 
loux against, 11 7-1 19. 

Vauban , a representative Frenchman , 

Vauvenargues, Thiers' prize discourse 
upon, 16-18. 

Venice, contrasted by Thiers with 
Florence, 158, 159. 

Vernet, Horace, his popularity pre- 
dicted by Thiers, 23. 

Versailles, transference of the seat of 
Government to, 206, 207. 

Victor Emmanuel, King of Italj', 
Thiers' interview with, 1S7. 

Voltaire, Thiers belongs to his intel- 
lectual family, 26 ; Thiers' style 
compared with his, 44 ; Thiers' 
subject compared with his, 45 ; 
Thiers like him in other respects, 
65 ; characteristics which he shared 
in common with Napoleon and with 
Thiers, 70; his scientific knowledge 
and that of Thiers, 134, 135 ; a rep- 
resentative Frenchman, 233. 

War, art of See Soldier. 

Wellington, Duke of, Thiers' anec- 
dote of, 128 

William I., King of Prussia, approves 
the renunciation of the Spanish 
crown by Prince Leopold, 164, 165 ; 
pressed by the Ollivier ministry, 
165, 166 

Women, Thiers' want of esteem for 
their genius, 25 ; his gallantry 
toward, 131 ; his wife and her sister, 
230. 

Works of Thiers, general remarks on, 
g-i2 ; "The Pyrenees and the 
South of France during the Months 
of November and December. 1822," 
13-16, 21 ; prize discourse on Vau- 
venargues, 16-18; political articles 
for the " Constitutionnel," 21-23 \ 
political bulletins for the " Ta- 
blettes Universelles," 21 ; art criti- 
cism for the "Globe" (quotation), 
23-25; biography of Miss Bellamy, 
36 ; article on Sulpiz Boisseree, 36 ; 



Index. 



243 



article on Cologne Cathedral, 36; 
study of John Law, 36 ; article on 
Marshal Saint-Cyr (quoted), 36, 37 ; 
article in response to Montlosier 
(quoted), 37, 38; "History of the 
French Revolution," 38-45; Pro 
test against the July Ordinances 
54, SS; "The Monarchy of 1830,' 
55-57 ; first two speeches on finance 
59, 60; first successful speech, 61 
speech on foreign affairs (August 
1831), 62, 63 ; first ministerial speech, 
64; speech upon being received 
into the Academy (quoted), 73-75 ; 
speeches of Dec. 31, 1834, and of 
Jan. 22, 1S35 (quoted), 77, 78 ; re- 
port upon the Education Bill of 
1844, 90, 117; speech of Feb. 2, 
1848 (quoted), loi ; letter of March 
3, 1S48 (quoted), 105, 106; "De- 
fence of Property," loS ; speech of 
May 6, 1S34 (quoted), 109; report 
and speeches upon Proudhon's theo- 
ries and proposals, 109, no; speech 
in defence of the Italian policy 
(1S49), 115; speech on the first act 
of the conspiracy of Louis Bona- 
parte (quoted), 120, 121 ; speech on 
the proposition of the Questors 
(Nov. 1851), 122 ; unpublished work 
on scientific philosophy, 134, 230 ; 



' History of the Consulate and the 
Empire," 135-141 ; first important 
speech in the Corps Legislatif 
(quoted), 147-150 ; definition of a 
free country (quoted), 154 ; on poli- 
tical prudence (from the speech of 
April 13, 1865), 155 ; on Italy (from 
the same), 158, 159; speech of 
March 14, 1867, 157, 158; speech 
of Jan. 27, 1870, 160, 162; speech 
of June 30, 1S70 (quoted), 162. 163 ; 
speech of July 15, 1870 (quoted), 
167-169; letter of July 21, 1S70 
(quoted), 170-172 ; deposition be- 
fore the Committee of Inquiry, 
Sept. 17, 1871 (quoted), 176; ac- 
count of his mission to the neutral 
powers, 197 ; speech to the Assem- 
bly at Bordeaux, 206 ; speech of 
March 27, 1871, (quoted), 208; 
speech of April 16, 1835 (quoted), 
215 ; speech on recruitment (June 
8, 1872, quoted), 217, 218 ; message 
to the Assembly (1872), 21S, 219; 
farewell discourse, 221, 222 ; his 
last speech in the Assembly, 228 ; 
his summary of his political princi- 
ples, 230, 231. (i'^f Quotations, ) 
Writers, imaginative, attitude toward 

the July Government, 49-53. 
Writings of Thiers. See Works. 



THE END. 






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